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CONTEMPORARY   PORTRAITS 

(THIRD   SERIES) 


BOOKS  BY  FRANK  HARRIS 

THE  YELLOW  TICKET 

GREAT  DAYS       A  Novel 

THE  BOMB  A  Novel 

MONTES  THE  MATADOR 

UNPATH'D  WATERS 

THE  MAN  SHAKESPEARE 

THE  WOMEN  OF  SHAKESPEARE 

SHAKESPEARE  AND  HIS  LOVE       A  Play 


CONTEMPORARY 
PORTRAITS 

(THIRD  SERIES) 


By 

FRANK  HARRIS 


PUBLISHED  BY  THE  AUTHOR 

40  SEVENTH   AVENUE 
N  EW    YO  R  K    C  ITY 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


H.  G.  Wells 

FACING    PAGE 
I 

Upton  Sinclair 

15 

John  Galsworthy 

31 

CUNNINGHAME    GrAHAM 

45 

Gilbert  K.  Chesterton 

61 

Arthur  Symons 

71 

The  Right  Hon.  Winston  Churchill 

87 

Alfred  Russel  Wallace 

103 

Thomas  Huxley 

115 

Louis  Wilkinson 

131 

W.  L.  George 

143 

Henri  Gaudier-Brzeska 

149 

Lord  St.  Aldwyn 

165 

Augustus  John 

181 

Coventry  Patmore 

191 

Walt  Whitman 

211 

CONTENTS 

rAGS 

Introduction  v 

H.  G.  Wells  i 

Upton  Sinclair  i5 

John  Galsworthy  31 

Cunninghame  Graham  45 

Gilbert  K.  Chesterton  61 

Arthur  Symons  71 

Winston  Churchill  87 

RussEL  Wallace  103 

Thomas  Huxley  115 

Louis  Wilkinson  131 

W.  L.  George  143 

Gaudier-Brzeska  ^149 

Lord  St.  Aldwyn  165 

Augustus  John  181 

Coventry  Patmore  191 

Walt  Whitman  211 


COPYRIGHT    1920    BY 
FRANK     HARRIS 


INTRODUCTION 

WHAT  a  gorgeous  undertaking  it  is  to  try  to  depict 
the  soul  of  a  man.  A  god-like  hardship  to  render 
in  words  the  utmost  reach  of  thought  and 
spiritual  endeavor  and  the  abyss  of  feelings,  instincts, 
fears— the  ghostly  echoes  in  us  of  forgotten  dangers  or 
long  disused  powers.  Of  necessity  the  enterprise  is  a 
failure. 

You  might  as  well  try  to  paint  a  wave  and  at  the 
same  time,  its  chemical  constituents  and  its  myriad 
animalculae. 

You  think  of  your  friend's  chief  characteristic,  the 
most  prominent  and  peculiar  trait  of  his  nature  and 
before  you  have  got  it  on  the  paper,  you  recognize  that 
he  might  correct  you  and  declare  that  the  opposite  and 
antagonistic  quality  had  guided  him  again  and  again 
and  in  fact  finally  determined  his  life's  course. 

Each  one  of  us  is  made  up  of  a  myriad  contradictories 
and  no  man  has  been  able  as  yet  to  paint  his  own  spirit 
in  its  entirety,  let  alone  a  stranger's,  for  we  are  all 
strangers  one  to  another  and  lonely  from  the  cradle  to 
the  grave,  alone  and  forlorn. 

Yet  when  we  look  at  this  impossible  task  in  another 
light,  it  comes  within  our  compass.  If  the  complexities 
are  infinite  we  have  them  all  within  us  and  so  can  piece 

V 


VI  INTRODUCTION 

out  the  portrait  for  ourselves.  Moreover,  if  we  are 
dealing  with  great  men  and  their  achievements  our  chief 
object  should  be  to  set  forth  the  qualities  and  accidents 
that  made  their  triumphs  possible,  for  thus  we  render 
them  comprehensible  to  others,  an  encouragement  and 
perhaps  an  inspiration. 

Great  men  are  to  us  the  ladder  Jacob  dreamed  of 
reaching  from  earth  to  Heaven;  they  show  us  the  way 
to  climb,  the  heights  to  be  reached,  and  are  so  to  speak 
the  altar-stairs  of  our  achievement;  the  love  of  them  a 
vital  part  of  natural  religion;  their  words  our  authentic 
inspiration  and  Gospel. 

To  know  them  by  their  works  is  not  enough ;  we  want 
the  personal  touch  of  intimate  knowledge;  the  little 
vanky  that  acted  as  a  spur;  the  trick  of  gesture  or 
curious  choice  of  phrase  that  throws  light  on  some  quirk 
of  mind  or  idiosyncracy  of  thought.  The  works  of  genius 
will  be  there  for  men  in  the  future  to  use  and  judge;  the 
personalities  should  be  preserved  in  the  memories  of 
contemporaries. 

In  this  spirit  I  have  worked  and  here  they  are  my  sixty 
eminent  men  pictured  in  their  habit  as  they  lived.  In 
deference  to  our  modern  courteous  custom  I  have 
extenuated  a  great  many  faults  in  my  sitters,  and  assured- 
ly have  set  down  naught  in  malice.  Indeed  I  have  tried 
to  paint  no  one  whom  I  have  not  loved  at  some  time  or 
other  and  had  the  Age  been  less  mealy-mouthed  I  should 
have  liked  to  block  in  the  outlines  with  heavier  shadows 
and  so  reach  a  more  vivid  verisimilitude. 


INTRODUCTION  vii 

In  my  "Autobiography,"  however,  I  intend  to  be 
franker  than  the  world  will  allow  me  to  be  in  these 
"Portraits" ;  but  I  have  no  trace  of  malice  or  envy  in  me 
and  accordingly  shall  always  try  my  best  to  see  my  subject 
as  he  sees  himself.  For  this  is  what  we  all  desire,  that 
men  may  see  us  as  we  see  ourselves  with  a  kindly  eye 
for  shortcomings  and  a  mother's  pride  in  our  excellencies 
and  indeed  in  our  mere  peculiarities. 

The  book  as  it  stands  is  due  to  a  remark  Carlyle 
made  to  me  once  when  he  told  me  he  had  spent  twelve — 
or  was  it  fourteen  years  ?  on  his  half-hero  Frederick. 

"What  a  pity,"  I  cried ;  "if  you  with  your  seeing  eyes 
and  painting  phrases  had  only  given  us  life-sized  portraits 
of  your  famous  contemporaries,  how  much  richer  we 
should  have  been.  Had  you  only  painted  Coleridge, 
Lamb  and  Hazlitt,  Thackeray  and  Dickens  and  Reade 
and  Ruskin,  Byron  and  Browning,  to  say  nothing  of 
Heine,  Hugo  and  Balzac,  as  you  painted  Tennyson,  what 
a  gallery  we  should  have  had." 

"May  be,"  he  said,  "but  I  wasn't  in  sympathy  with 
many  you  mention.  Each  man  has  to  do  his  own  work. 
Perhaps  you  will  do  portraits  of  your  contemporaries  and 
so  fill  the  gap." 

From  that  day  on  I  kept  it  in  mind  as  a  part  of  my 
work  and  it  is  for  others  now  to  say  whether  I  have  done 
it  well  or  ill. 

Nine  out  of  ten  of  these  portraits  have  been  painted 
with  loving-kindness ;  if  I  find  it  hard  to  excuse  the  men 


VIII  INTRODUCTION 

who  in  stress  of  war  gave  up  their  opinions  and  turned 
their  coats,  or,  if  you  will,  yielded  to  popular  clamor 
obeying  obscure  centripetal  influences,  my  prejudice,  if 
you  will,  or  my  sense  of  contempt  is  probably  due  to  the 
fact  that  I  have  suffered  all  my  life  through  unpopularity. 

Frank  Harris, 
40  Seventh  Ave., 

N.Y. 


H.  G.  Wells 


CONTEMPORARY  PORTRAITS 


H.  G.  WELLS 

WE  all  have  our  limitations,  blind  spots,  short- 
comings ;  we  can  all  trace  arrests  in  our  develop- 
ment, knots  which  the  sweet  sap  of  life  can 
ihardly  penetrate  or  vivify  to  growth;  imperfections,  not 
of  the  body  or  mind  merely,  but  of  the  soul. 

And  these  faults  and  flaws  of  ours  prevent  us  from 
being  faithful  mirrors;  this  man  we  show  well  and  that 
one  badly,  do  what  we  will. 

Often,  too,  the  personage  we  ought  to  mirror  best  we 
do  worst;  people  near  us,  like  us,  sympathetic  to  us,  wc 
cannot  be  just  to,  strain  as  we  may. 

And  our  blunders  are  incorrigible,  inexcusable,  inex- 
plicable— loathsome  to  us  as  running  sores,  till  we  see 
that  t'he  greatest  of  men  have  to  admit  similar  defeats. 
Then  we  resign  ourselves : 

"Why  must  I  'twixt  the  leaves  of  corona! 
Put  any  kiss  of  pardon  on  thy  brow?" 

We  men  all  need  forgiveness :  "pardon's  the  word  to 
all,"  as  gentle  Shakespeare  knew. 

In  my  first  volume  of  portraits  I  had  to  ask  the  readers' 
forgiveness  for  my  poor,  thin  sketch  of  glorious  Robert 
Browning. 


2  CONTEMPORARY  PORTRAITS 

Before  I  knew  him  I  would  have  wagfered  that  it  there 
was  one  Englishman  I  could  picture  to  the  life,  if  I  ever 
had  the  good  fortune  to  meet  him,  it  would  be  Robert 
Browning.  Surely  there  was  no  fold,  no  corner,  no  inner- 
most shrine  in  that  sipirit  unexplored  by  my  love!  And 
yet,  though  I  met  him  frequently,  I  could  not  get  near 
him,  could  not  even  get  him  to  sit  for  me. 

In  much  the  same  way  in  this  book  I  shall  fail  with  H. 
G.  Wells  and  the  Devil  alone  can  give  the  reason. 

I  find  that  when  I  say  I  discovered  this  genius  or  that, 
some  of  them  resent  it.  Shaw  said  it  seemed  to  liim  like 
patronage!  Assuredly  it  was  not  so  intended,  indeed  in 
my  case  was  nothing  more  than  the  sad  superiority  of 
the  senior. 

Had  I  ever  wished  to  make  capital  out  of  my  personal 
relations  with  this  or  that  man  of  genius  I  should  certainly 
have  published  my  reminiscences  of  Carlyle  or  Renan  or 
Burton  immediately  after  tiheir  deaths  when  curiosity  was 
at  its  height  and  gossip  about  them  universal.  I  could 
thus  have  won  a  cheap  notoriety  a  score  of  times,  but  such 
vicarious  limelight  seemed  to  me  degrading. 

Wells,  however,  has  since  called  me  his  "literary  god- 
father"; admitted  that  I  was  tihe  first  editor  to  publish 
anything  of  his,  so  I  may  claim  priority  here  even  though 
it  is  only  another  word  for  chance. 

When  I  took  over  the  editorship  of  The  Fortnightly 
Review  Mr.  Morley  was  very  kind  to  me;  towards  the 
end  of  our  talk  he  pointed  to  two  large  boxes  in  the 
corner  of  the  long  room  and  said: 

"You'll  find  those  boxes  full  of  manuscripts:  I  ought 


H.  G.  WELLS  3 

to  have  returned  them  long  ago ;  some  date  back  for  years ; 
some  are  recent.  You  could  get  your  secretary  just  to 
send  them  all  'back  and  so  bte  rid  of  'em — ^tlhe  happy  dis- 
patch, eh?"  And  the  bleak  face  lighted  up  with  a  glint 
of  wintry  sunshine. 

With  the  conscientiousness  of  the  beginner  I  went 
through  the  boxes.  Ninety  nine  out  of  every  hundred  man- 
uscripts were  worthless ;  many  out  of  date ;  some  aimed  at 
Morley's  pedantic  rationalism ;  only  two  struck  me ;  one  a 
story,  the  other  a  paper  on  "The  Rediscovery  of  the 
Unique."  The  story  and  who  wrote  it  I  may  talk  of  at 
some  future  time;  now  I  am  only  concerned  with  the 
article.  It  set  forth  that  the  modern  habit  of  generaliza- 
tion was  an  aid  to  memory  but  not  to  truth ;  the  beads  of 
fact  we  string  together  on  one  thread  are  all  different. 
No  two  leaves  of  a  tree  are  alike ;  no  two  eyes  in  a  head 
are  the  same  in  shape  or  color;  even  the  two  sides  of  the 
nose  are  never  exactly  matched,  nor  the  two  lobes  of  any 
brain.  Everything  in  nature  and  in  life  is  unique,  has  to 
be  studied  by  itself ;  for  the  soul  and  meaning  of  it  is  in 
its  uniqueness  and  it  will  not  yield  its  secret  save  to  loving 
study  of  its  singularity. 

The  paper  was  charmingly  written,  the  style  simple, 
easy,  rhythmic ;  the  architecture  faultless.  The  signature 
surprised  me.  I  had  expected  some  well-known  name: 
H.  G.  Wells! 

"HLave  you  ever  heard  of  Wells  ?"  I  asked  my  assistant. 
He  shook  his  head. 

"You  will  hear  of  him,"  I  ventured.    "And  now  I  want 


4  CONTEMPORARY  PORTRAITS  . 

you  to  write  and  ask  him  to  come  to  see  me  any  afternoon 
here!" 

A  few  days  afterwards  Wells  called  and  Tasked  him 
to  take  a  seat,  I  told  him  of  his  article  and  how  greatly 
I  admired  it,  all  the  while  studying  him.  A  man  of 
middle  height,  well-made,  with  sha/pely  head,  thick  chest- 
nut hair,  regular  features;  chin  and  brow  both  good; 
nothing  arresting  or  peculiar  in  the  face,  save  the  eyes; 
eyes  that  grew  on  one.  They  were  of  ordinary  size,  a 
grayish  blue  in  color,  but  intent,  shadowed,  suggesting 
depth  like  water  in  a  half -covered  spring;  observant  eyes, 
too,  that  asked  questions,  but  reflection,  meditation  the 
note  of  them ;  eyes  almost  pathetic  in  the  patience  of  their 
scrutiny. 

His  manner  was  timid ;  he  spoke  very  little  and  only  in 
response;  his  accent  that  of  a  Cockney.  He  professed 
himself  a  student  of  science. 

"I've  written  some  things  for  science  papers,  for 
Nature.  1  scarcely  hoped  to  have  this  paiper  accepted; 
it  has  been  so  long  since  I  sent  it  in,  I'm  glad  you  like 
it. .  .  ." 

He  was  so  effaced,  so  colorless,  so  withdrawn,  that  he 
wiped  out  the  effect  his  paper  'had  made  on  me.  I  lost 
sight  of  him  for  some  time,  but  knew  his  value. 

When  I  took  The  Saturday  Revieiv  I  asked  Wells  to 
review  the  best  novels  for  me.  In  the  few  years  that  had 
elapsed  since  our  first  meeting,  his  manner,  I  found,  had 
entirely  changed ;  there  was  no  trace  of  timidity  now ;  a 
quiet  self-confidence  had  taken  its  place ;  the  provincialism 
of  accent  had  also  disappeared.    He  was  uncertain,  "he 


H.  G.  WELLS  5 

said,  whether  he  could  write  regularly  for  me ;  "creative 
work  is  beginning  to  take  up  most  of  my  time ;  still,  I'd 
like  now  and  then  to  say  what  I  think  of  some  good 
book.  .  .  ." 

The  first  piece  of  journalism  that  counted  was  his 
memorable  review  of  Conrad's  first  novel,  "Almayer's 
Folly." 

It  sold  out  the  edition  in  a  week  and  laid  the  foundation 
of  Conrad's  fame — "broad  bases  for  eternity,"  if  only  he 
had  known  how  to  make  use  of  them. 

Naturally  I  was  delighted  and  gave  Wells  every  op- 
portunity of  repeating  his  feat;  but  he  had  no  other 
opportunity  for  triumph  so  far  as  I  can  remember. 

I  did  not  see  much  of  him  while  he  was  working  on  the 
Review ;  but  I  found  that  he  was  scrupulous  in  keeping  his 
word;  his  articles  were  always  forthcoming  at  the  time 
indicated  and  they  were  uniformly  excellent. 

One  incident,  however,  impressed  me  peculiarly.  Early 
in  1895  I  brought  out  a  volume  of  American  stories: 
"Elder  Conklin,"  I  had  had  them  by  me  so  long  in  print 
that  I  had  lost  interest  in  t'hem.  As  soon  as  a  story  ap- 
pears in  book  form  or  in  a  magazine  it  never  seems  to 
belong  to  me  any  more ;  I  am  able  to  regard  it  then  with 
some  detachment  almost  as  if  another  person  had  written 
it.  I  was  leaving  the  Saturday  Review  office  one  day 
when  I  ran  across  Wells ;  he  stotpped  me  with  a  word. 

"I  have  b*een  reading  that  book  of  yours  and  wanted  to 
talk  to  you  about  it,"  'he  began.  "I  had  seen  some  of 
the  stories  when  they  appeared  in  The  Fortnightly  and 


6  CONTEMPORARY  PORTRAITS 

liked  them ;  but  in  a  book  the  effect  of  them  is  altogether 
different." 

"Really  ?"  I  questioned. 

"Half  a  dozen  stories,"  he  went  on,  "give  you  an  im- 
pression of  the  writer;  enable  you  to  form  a  judgment  of 
him ;  whereas  a  single  story  or  even  two  or  three  read  at 
long  intervals  have  not  the  same  power." 

"Curious,"  I  interjected,  "it  is  not  quantity  with  me,  but 
always  some  little  intimate  touch  or  piece  of  self -revealing 
that  lets  me  see  the  writer's  soul,  and  once  I  get  the  cue 
my  impression  is  usually  confirmed  by  his  other 
writings." 

"It  was  the  whole  book,"  he  went  on,  "that  gave  me  a 
view  of  your  sub-conscious  self.  I  call  it  sub-conscious 
because  it  is  so  unlike  the  Frank  Harris  one  knows." 

"I  don't  follow  you,"  I  said  dryly. 

"Well,"  he  began  afresh,  "when  one  meets  you,  you  are 
about  the  most  dominant,  imperious  personality  I've  ever 
seen;  but  in  this  'book  one  finds  a  modest,  i>atient  and 
peculiarly  fair-minded  person,  who  wishes  first  and  last 
to  ipresent  every  one  impartially  and  find  some  soul  of 
goodness  in  every  outcast  even.  I  could  not  but  ask  my- 
self:  which  is  the  real  man?" 

"Both,"  I  replied  laughing,  and  went  my  way.  But 
Wells's  insight  had  greatly  increased  my  respect  for  his 
intelligence.  It  was  the  first  time  I  had  been  so  analyzed 
to  my  face  and  it  gave  me  an  odd  shock  that  among  these 
conventional,  subdued,  cautious  folk  I  was  regarded  as  a 
wild  American,  or  what  Shaw  has  since  called  "a  ruffian." 

Still,  I  consoled  myself  quickly :  I  knew  how  little  man- 


H.  G.  WELLS  7 

ners  count  in  the  final  estimate  of  a  writer,  less  even  than 
his  personal  appearance ;  it's  his  work  alone  that  matters 
and  by  that  alone  he'll  be  judged.  Who  cares  now  that 
Shakespeare's  manners  were  said  to  be  "too  sweet"  or 
Beethoven's  too  insolent  and  domineering.  Rebel  or 
courtier,  ingratiating  or  cynically  contemptuous,  no  one 
will  care  which  you  were,  ten  years  after  your  death. 

On  reflection  fhe  interesting  thing  to  me  was  that  Wells 
too  wanted  to  see  other  men  as  they  really  are;  he,  too, 
was  evidently  trying  as  I  was  trying  to  get  from  the 
writing  to  the  writer.  The  consequence  was  that  I  became 
interested  in  him,  and  read  his  first  book  carefully, 

"The  Time  Machine"  and  other  strange  stories  im- 
pressed me  hugely;  I  thought  them  excellent;  the  best 
of  their  kind  ever  done ;  but  I  could  not  believe  that  such 
Jules  Verne  yarns  would  outlast  the  generation  for  which 
they  were  written,  though  Wells  was  a  head  above  Verne 
both  in  content  and  handling:  a  born  story-teller  of  the 
best  with  an  imagination  fecundated  by  scientific  specula- 
tion. 

A  little  later  I  read  "Love  and  Mr.  Lewisham"  and 
found  that  I  had  underrated  him ;  Wells  might  be  a  great 
novelist,  might  do  something  that  would  outlive  his  genera- 
tion or  even — 

Filled  with  admiration  I  began  a  mental  portrait  of  him 
and  kept  asking  about  his  life  in  order  to  correct  or  con- 
firm my  deductions. 

I  found  from  a  dozen  indications  that  he  was  very 
touchy  about  his  social  position,  anxious  to  be  well  up  in 
the  latest  society  slang,  to  dress  and  behave  correctly. 


8  CONTEMPORARY  PORTRAITS 

When  I  mentioned  this  to  some  one  who  knew  Wells 
intimately,  he  replied : 

"Wells's  father,  you  know,  was  a  professional  cricketer, 
getting  in  the  summer  months  perhaps  $25  a  week.  He 
has  come  from  the  bottom  and  learnt  all  the  society 
touches  as  a  man  and  is  therefore  naturally  nervous:  a 
little  unsure  of  himself." 

On  the  other  hand  I  soon  discovered  that  Wells  had  a 
curious  conviction  of  his  own  greatness  both  as  a  writer 
and  thinker;  but  especially  as  a  thinker.  His  education 
was  very  modern;  he  had  never  been  brought  into  close 
contact  with  the  greatest  minds  in  the  past ;  he  measured 
himself  only  against  his  contemporaries  and  thus  found  a 
thousand  reasons  to  justify  a  hig*h  self -estimate. 

Wells's  first  successes  came  to  him  when  he  was  only 
twenty-nine  and  they  were  flattering  enough  to  turn  the 
steadiest  head.  His  scientific  stories  had  an  extraordinary 
vogue,  were  translated  into  a  dozen  languages ;  by  the  time 
he  was  thirty-two  or  three.  Wells  was  known  from  Kyoto 
to  Paris. 

And  when  he  turned  to  writing  novels  of  life  and  char- 
acter his  vogue  helped  him;  the  great  wave  of  his  popu- 
larity lifted  him  over  one  difficulty  after  another.  While 
still  a  young  man  he  was  earning  more  than  a  Cabinet 
Minister  and  was  received  almost  everywhere ;  listened  to 
also  by  older  men,  men  of  established  position,  with  a 
certain  deference  or  at  least  with  courteous  attention. 
Women  too  made  much  of  him ;  he  is  quite  good-looking 
and  intensely  interested  in  the  fair  sex  and  as  usual  they 
returned  that  compliment  with  uncommon  zest. 


H.  G.  WELLS  9 

Now  all  this  is  infinitely  pleasant  to  a  man,  intoxicating 
even;  but  it  is  not  the  fate  Fortune  allots  to  those  rare 
spirits  destined  to  steer  humanity. 

Cervantes  lost  the  use  of  a  hand  in  the  fettle  of  Le- 
panto ;  was  taken  by  the  Moors  and  worked  for  years  as 
a  slave;  then  in  his  native  land  when  he  managed  to  get 
a  pitiful  post  he  lost  it  on  a  false  accusation  and  was  again 
thrown  into  prison.  Finally  at  sixty,  poor,  neglected,  al- 
most destitute  with  six  women  and  several  little  children 
dependent  on  him,  "in  (poor  health  and  very  anxious,"  as 
he  himself  said,  he  sat  down  to  write  "Don  Quixote." 

The  great  popular  writer  of  the  time,  Lope  de  Vega, 
sneered  at  him  and  his  works;  declared  that  "Don 
Quixote"  was  poor,  second-rate  trash ;  used  all  his 
power  and  influence  to  crush  the  older  man  who  wasn't 
even  a  rival  but  a  belauder  of  de  Vega's  "most  in- 
genious and  interesting  comedies." 

Yet  no  one  reads  de  Vega  to-day  and  no  one  can 
a/void  reading  the  comedy  and  tragedy  of  "Don  Qui- 
xote," the  greatest  prose  book  in  the  world,  I  think,  after 
the  Bible. 

•  But  "Don  Quixote"  didn't  assure  to  Cervantes  his 
daily  bread.  Even  after  he  had  brought  out  the  second 
part  at  seventy  odd  years  of  age  he  was  poor  and  often 
in  need.  But  his  immortal  courage  never  faltered.  Just 
before  his  death  the  Bishop  of  Toledo  wrote  to  him 
saying  that  he  would  like  to  help  him  if  he  wanted  any- 
thing. 

"Nothing  for  myself,"  he  replied,  "my  foot  is  already 


lo  CONTEMPORARY  PORTRAITS 

in  the  stirrup,  b'ut  if  your  lordship  would  help  my  poor 
wife  and  iher  relatives,  I'd  go  content!" 

That's  the  sort  of  life  men  give  to  their  teachers  and 
true  guides. 

Success  is  its  own  handicap  and  nowhere  in  life  ex- 
cept perhaps  in  politics  is  success  so  seductive  as  it  is 
to  the  writer.  Editors  flatter,  publishers  offer  golden 
baits,  strangers  enquire  eagerly  about  the  next  book ;  fair 
women  show  impatience;  what  can  a  man  do  but  write 
vAien  writing  comes  so  easily   ? 

Alas!  facile,  fluent  writing  makes  very  hard  reading. 
And  the  man  who  produces  a  couple  of  books  each  year 
should  know  that  he  is  w^riting  for  the  day  and  hour 
and  is  nothing  but  a  journalist.  Great  work  is  not  done 
at  such  speed.  And  Mr.  Well's  speed  seems  to  be  in- 
creasing; in  1918  I  read  "The  Soul  of  a  Bishop,"  and 
"God,  the  Invisible  King,"  and  "Mr.  Britling  Sees  It 
Throug'h."  The  two  first  quite  unreadable,  altogether 
unworthy  of  Mr.  Wells's  talent  and  position.  "Mr. 
Britling  Sees  It  Through"  was  dreadfully  tedious  for 
some  hundreds  of  pages;  but  the  last  fifty  or  sixty 
pages  redeemed  the  book. 

And  now  this  year  I  have  had  much  the  same  experi- 
ence: "In  the  Fourth  Year,"  b'y  Mr.  Wells,  is  a  mere 
pamphlet  on  the  times  and  anything  but  a  good  pam- 
phlet, while  the  long  novel  "Joan  &  Peter"  deserves 
little  consideration.  The  first  two  hundred  pages  of 
it  are  deadly  dull  and  wholly  uninspired;  when  the 
children  grow  up,  however,  the  narrative  becomes  in- 
teresting in  spite  of  being  interrupted  on  almost  every 


H.  G.  WELLS  II 

page  by  some  remark  on  the  war  or  comment  on  this 
or  that  phase  of  the  struggle  which  is  merely  adven- 
titious. The  love-story  with  its  touch  of  novelty  in 
the  boldness  of  Joan  would  have  made  an  excellent 
short  story.  Mr.  Wells  has  almost  buried  it  in  500 
pages.  I  do  not  believe  that  the  next  generation  even 
will  take  the  trouble  to  disinter  it. 

But  all  this  matters  little  or  nothing.  A  writer  is 
judged  by  the  best  in  him  and  not  by  his  mistakes  and 
blunders.  His  faults  and  sihortcomings  do  not  even 
enter  into  the  account.  The  question  is:  has  Mr. 
Wells  written  anything  that  must  live;  one  master- 
piece is  enough  for  any  man's  measure.  Surely  the 
answer  as  yet  must  He  in  the  negative.  I  don't  forget 
"The  War  of  the  Worlds,"  or  "The  Time  Machine," 
or  "The  Island  of  Dr.  Moreau,"  still  less  "The  Country 
of  the  Blind,"  or  "The  Research  Magnificent." 

But  no  one  of  these  by  any  stretch  of  sympathy  can 
be  called  a  mastenpiece. 

Mr.  Wells,  however,  has  still  time;  I  only  regret  that 
he  has  allowed  these  last  four  years  with  their  insistent 
urge  and  appeal  to  drag  him  into  journalism  and  pam- 
phleteering. 

But  will  he  ever  give  now  w'hat  we  have  a  right  to 
expect  from  him?  I  still  hope  or  I  shouldn't  have 
written  about  him  at  this  length.  He  began  so  well. 
In  the  famous  nineties  in  London  he  was  a  prominent 
Fabian  with  Sidney  Webb  and  Bernard  Shaw.  True, 
he  left  the  Fabians  rather  rudely  and  drew  down  on 
?iimself  one  of  the  few  contemptuous  harsh  letters  which 


12  CONTEMPORARY  PORTRAITS 

Bernard  Shaw  has  written.  Since  then  he  has  cari- 
catured Sidney  Webb  and  his  wife  mercilessly;  but  all 
that  is  of  small  and  transitory  importance. 

He  may  never  write  a  great  novel  of  revolt ;  yet  may 
still  have  a  great  love  story  in  him.  It  should  not  be 
difficult  for  him  to  beat  "Tom  Jones."  He  has  a  better 
brain  than  Fielding  and  a  far  more  flexible  style ;  knows 
women,  too,  if  not  men  and  criminals,  better  than  the 
great  magistrate.  Why  should  he  not  write  a  novel  that 
would  stand  to  "Tom  Jones"  as  "La  Recherche  de  I'Ab- 
solu"  stands  to  "Manon  Lescaut"? 

I  should  be  more  than  hopeful  were  it  not  for  his 
attitude  on  this  world-war.  For  years  he  talked  of  im- 
minent victory,  vilified  the  Germans  and  exalted  the 
'  British,  with  the  myopic  fervor  of  an  Arnold  Bennett. 
Now  if  one  may  judge  by  "Mr.  Britling"  he  is  slowly 
coming  back  to  sanity  again;  but  his  recent  laudation 
of  "The  League  of  Nations"  is  in  the  same  overpitched 
key,  almost  hysterical,  as  far  from  sober  reason  as  Kip- 
ling's crazy  phillippics. 

Again  and  again  now  in  this  way,  now  in  that.  Wells 
reminds  me  of  Upton  Sinclair,  They  are  both  healthy, 
and  on  the  whole  well-balanced,  and  yet  endowed  with 
extraordinary  ability;  they  should  both  do  great  work 
and  yet  one  gives  us  "The  Jungle"  as  'his  best,  and  the 
other  "The  New  Machiavelli,"  or  "Mr.  Britling." 

It  was  bruited  about  in  London  at  the  time  that  "The 
New  Machiavelli"  derived  its  fervor  from  the  fact  that 
much  of  it  was  autobiographical.  I  am  not  especially  in- 
terested in  that  view  of  the  matter  believing  as  I  do  that 


H.  G.  WELLS  13 

all  the  best  creative  work  must  necessarily  be  drawn  from 
personal  experience.  The  artist's  task  still  remains  to 
make  what  is  individual,  universal  and  thus  give  the  mor- 
tal, immortality. 

Wells  has  no  doubt  been  run  after  by  women  and  made 
much  of  by  pretty  girls;  he  is  not  only  virile  but  good- 
looking  and  even  in  the  early  thirties  was  invested  with 
the  halo  of  fame.  Moths  flutter  to  the  light,  but  when 
they  give  their  bodies  to  be  burned  they  diminish,  for  a 
moment  at  least,  the  illuminating  power.  In  the  case  of 
an  artist  no  one  cares  whence  the  inspiration  comes ;  the 
fact  of  its  presence  is  a41-sufficient  justification. 

Mr.  Wells  is  a  far  better  writer  than  Mr.  Sinclair,  lives 
too,  nearer  the  centre,  is  more  exposed  to  high  criti- 
cism, and  yet  he  can  write  "The  Soul  of  a  Bishop" 
and  "In  the  Fourth  Year,"  and  he  is  now  well  past 
fifty;  still,  while  there's  life  there's  'hope, 

Mr.  Well's  latest  work,  an  attempt  to  write  the  natural 
'history  of  the  earth  from  the  time  it  was  thrown  off 
from  the  Sun  to  the  present,  is  ambitious  enough  in  all 
conscience ;  but  the  great  artist  as  a  rule  has  enough  to 
do  to  write  the  natural  history  of  his  own  soul,  leaving 
speculation  about  origins  and  developments  outside  him- 
self to  the  camp-followers  of  science.  He  is  a  pioneer 
of  the  advance  and  is  vitally  interested  in  forming  or 
heralding  the  future  in  accord  with  his  own  development 
leaving  the  dead  past  to  bury  its  dead. 


Upton  Sinclair 


UPTON  SINCLAIR 

A  HANDSOME  fellow  of  good  middle  beight  and 
strongly  made,  Sinclair  reminded  me  at  our  first 
meeting  of  Wells;  but  his  features  were  even 
more  regular  and  his  forehead  broader.  The  eyes,  too, 
were  fuller  of  light  and  kinder  than  Well's  eyes;  not 
such  reflective  mirroring  pools,  I  mean,  but  quicker, 
brighter,  vertical  wrinkles  between  the  brows — surely 
of  doubt  and  thought ;  perhaps  of  disappointment  grown 
impatient  or  querulous.  Nevertheless,  a  fine  wellbal- 
anced  face,  backed  by  direct  cordial  decisive  manner 
which  contradicted  the  wrinkles. 

Sinclair  was  still  young — about  thirty-two — and  had 
already  The  Jungle  to  his  credit  and  half  a  dozen  other 
novels;  he  migiht  well  be  one  of  the  Sacred  Band,  seer 
at  once  and  creative  artist — another  Cervantes.  "The 
JungHe"  was  very  nearly  a  masterpiece;  if  the  end  had 
been  worked  up  crescendo  to  flaming  revolt,  it  would 
have  been  the  finest  of  American  novels  fit  to  rank 
with  "Robinson  Crusoe,"  "The  Pilgrim's  Progress,"  and 
"The  Cloister  and  the  Heartih."  None  of  these  books 
was  written  before  the  author  was  forty;  what  might 
not  Sinclair  do  in  another  ten  years?  Clearly  he  was  a 
man  to  know,  worth  careful  study. 

Unluckily  for  me  he  was  then  on  his  way  to  Holland, 
stopping  in  London  only  for  a  short  time;  he  could  not 

15 


i6  CONTEMPORARY  PORTRAITS 

give  me  another  meeting  though  he  was  kind  enough 
to  say  that  he  regretted  tihe  necessity. 

I  talked  to  him  of  his  new  book,  "Love's  Pilgrimage," 
wlhich  I  thought  a  mistake,  and  in  the  unexpurgaited 
form,  a  blunder.  There  were  fine  pages  in  it,  hcywever; 
here  and  there  an  original  thought;  a  mind  beginning 
to  feel  its  own  power. 

The  book  was  so  different  from  "The  Jungle"  that 
in  sipite  of  its  shortcomings  it  testified  to  uncommon 
width  of  vision.  I  was  eager  to  know  how  Sinclair 
had  grown ;  what  reading  he  <had  done,  and  what  think- 
ing to  come  to  his  power  as  a  story-teller.  For  as 
Dante  knew,  the  man  who  can  tell  convincingly  what 
he  has  seen,  must  have  a  noble  mind.  Sinclair  gave  me 
the  outlines  of  his  early  life  quite  simply:  I  reproduce 
his  words: 

"I  was  born  in  Baltimore  in  1878.  I  went  to  the 
'public  school  and  t^he  Co^llege  of  the  City  of  New  York, 
where  I  studied  the  things  which  interested  me  and 
neglected  those  that  did  not  interest  me. 

"In  the  last  year  I  got  leave  of  ab'sence  for  several 
months,  stayed  at  home  and  read  omnivorously.  The 
three  men  who  had  most  to  do  with  the  shaping  of  my 
thought  were  Jesus,  Hamlet  and  Shelley.  But  at  this 
time  I  also  read  and  studied  especially  Carlyle,  Brown- 
ing, Milton  and  Goethe.  Tennyson  I  read,  but  was  al- 
ways irritated  by  his  conventionality.  Arnold  was,  I 
think,  next  to  Shelley  and  Shakespeare,  my  favorite  poet. 
I  loved  his  noble  dignity — rather  mournful — not  at  all 
what  I  was  or  meant  to  be,  but  the  best  of  t^he  old  stuff. 


UPTON  SINCLAIR  17 

I  think  a  lot  of  Thackeray,  too.  I  read  all  the  Germans 
up  to  Freytag  before  I  read  any  French,  so  the  French 
had  less  influence  on  me.  But  Zola  taught  me  a  lot. 
I  said  of  the  "Jungle"  that  I  had  tried  to  put  the  content 
of   Shelley  into  the   form  of  Zola. 

"I  do  not  'stiir  read  Latin  and  Greek,  as  you  suppose. 
I  never  read  them.  I  studied  Latin  five  years  and 
Greek  three  years.  I  looked  up  some  words  in  the  dic- 
tionary ten  thousand  times  and  forgot  them  ten  thousand 
times.  I  said  what  I  had  to  say  on  the  futility  of  lan- 
guage study  as  it  is  done  in  colleges  in  two  articles  which 
you  will  find  in  the  files  of  the  Independent  along  about 
1902  or  1903.  When  I  came  out  of  college  I  taugtht  my- 
self to  read  French  in  six  weeks  and  I  learned  more 
German  in  one  month  by  myself  than  I  had  learned  in 
college  in  two  years. 

"I  did  graduate  work  at  Columbia  University  for 
four  years.  I  began  about  forty  courses  and  finished 
half  a  dozen  of  them.  I  quit  because  Nicholas  Murray 
Butler  fired  all  the  men  who  had  any  life  in  them. 

"My  first  short  story  was  published  w^en  I  was  fif- 
^teen." 

Sinclair  appears  to  have  read  almost  completely  for 
pleasure  and  perhaps  there  is  no  better  way.  But  when 
he  says  "all  the  Germans  up  to  Freytag"  he  clearly  means 
merely  modern  Germans  and  apparently  is  not  a  student. 
But  I  wanted  him  to  tell  me  how  his  thought  grew  and  the 
stages  of  it.  How  came  he  to  see  the  vices  of  the  in- 
dividualist competitive  system  of  our  time  and  realize 


i8  CONTEMPORARY  PORTRAITS 

its  atrocious  injustice  with  the  flaming  passion  that 
sears  every  page  of  "The  Jungle"? 

He  replied  frankly: 

"What  b'rought  me  to  Socialism  was  more  Christianity 
than  anything  else.  I  saw  that  those  who  professed 
Jesus  did  not  practice  him  nor  seem  to  understand  him, 
I  wanted  to.  And  the  more  I  came  to  doubt  his  divinity, 
the  more  im<portant  it  seemed  to  me  to  understand  and 
apply  tihe  human  side  of  his  teaching.  I  wrote  'Arthur 
Stirling'  and  'Prince  Hagen,'  which  are  pretty  much 
Socialistic  works,  before  I  ever  met  a  Socialist.  I 
thought  I  was  the  only  person  who  knew  those  things; 
I  had  the  burden  of  it  all  in  my  soul  at  twenty;  and  then, 
when  I  ran  into  Leonard  Abbott  and  Wilshire  I  dis- 
covered it  was  all  known  before." 

Sinclair  did  not  feel  as  I  did  the  necessity  of  embody- 
ing tihe  two  opposing  principles  of  individualism  and  So- 
cialism in  life,  and  so  I  put  the  question  to  him:  "Do 
you  believe  Socialism  will  supersede  individualism?  I 
want  the  state  to  take  over  many  departments  of  labor; 
to  resume  possession  of  the  land  and  to  nationalize  rail- 
roads, telephones  and  telegraiphs,  etc.  I  hope  municipal- 
ities will  take  charge  of  all  local  public  services;  but 
you  seem  to  want  Socialism  everywhere,  seing  no  short- 
comings in  it." 

Sinclair  replied:  "I  have  never  doubted  Socialism. 
You  see  I  use  the  word  in  a  broad  sense  to  mean  the 
change  from  private  owners>hip  and  exploitation  to  so- 
cial ownership  and  co-operation.  As  to  ways  and 
methods,  etc.,  I  have  an  open  mind,  and  change  it  con- 


UPTON  SINCLAIR  19 

tinually.  I  am  a  half- syndicalist,  and  I  understand  that 
the  final  goal  is  anarchy,  so  I  can  get  along  with  all 
the  sects.  I  think  an  open  mind  is  my  chief  character- 
istic ;  at  any  rate  my  belief  in  it.  I  try  to  combine  moral 
passion  witih  good  judgment,  and  I  know  it's  hard  to  do 
because  I  see  so  few  who  even  try  it. 

"I  try  to  be  impersonal;  that  is  rather  easy  for  me, 
because  I  am  naturally  absorbed  in  ideas.  I  prefer 
getting  alone  and  reading  about  world  events  to  meet- 
ing anybody.  I  naturally  don't  see  people.  I  mean,  I 
don't  notice  their  eyes  or  hair,  etc.  .  .  .  Sometimes  I 
am  rude  without  being  able  to  help  it,  because  I  am 
easily  bored  and  have  great  difficulty  in  controlling 
myself;  I  mean  that  my  mind  runs  away  before  I  know 
it  and  I  am  chasing  some  thoughts  inside  myself. 

"I  find  that  I  have  started  out  to  tdl  you  about  my- 
self as  I  really  am,  and  as  I  suppose  that's  what  you 
want,  I'll  go  on. 

"When  I  was  young,  eighteen  or  so,  I  thought  I  was 
inspired;  at  any  rate  I  had  some  sort  of  a  demon  inside 
me  and  I  worked  day  and  night  and  ate  myself  up.  I 
set  out  at  seventeen  to  try  and  learn  the  violin,  and  I 
practiced  ten  hours  a  day,  practically  every  day,  for 
two  or  three  years.  I  mean  that  literally;  eight  to 
twelve;  two  to  six  and  eight  to  ten.  Then  I  got  mar- 
ried and  had  to  work  at  things  that  carried  at  least  a  hope 
of  money. 

"I  had  supported  myself  by  writing  from  the  time  I 
was  fifteen.  But  when  I  got  to  be  twenty  (and  had 
marriage  in  view)  a  desire  to  write  serious  things  over- 


20  CONTEMPORARY  PORTRAITS 

whelmed  me,  so  I  could  no  longer  write  the  pot-Woilers, 
dime  novels,  jokes,  etc.,  by  which  I  had  paid  my  way 
through  college. 

"From  twenty  to  twenty-six  I  nearly  starved.  All 
my  novels  of  that  time — 'King  Midas',  'Prince  Hagen,' 
'Artjhur  Stirling,'  'Manassas,'  and  'A  Captain  of  In- 
dustry'— 'brought  me  less  than  one  thousand  dollars  al- 
together. I  lived  alone  on  $4.50  a  week  in  New  York 
and  I  lived  in  the  country  with  my  family  for  $30  a 
month.  I  reaUy  did  it — had  to.  Hence  my  bitterness ' 
and  my  fury  against  poverty.  They  can't  fool  me  with 
phrases. 

"When  I  wrote  what  really  interested  me  I  never 
stopped  day  or  night  for  weeks  at  a  time.  I  mean  that 
I  had  the  thing  I  was  writing  in  my  mind  every  moment 
— I  think  even  while  I  was  asleep.  I  developed  a  really 
extraordinary  memory  for  words;  I  never  put  pen  to 
paper  till  I  had  whole  pages  off  by  heart  in  my  mind. 
I  would  walk  mp  and  down  thinking  it  over  and  over 
and  it   would   stay  in  my  mind — whole   scenes. 

"In  the  Stockyards  I  came  on  a  wedding  and  sat  and 
watched  it  all  afternoon  and  evening,  and  the  wfliole 
opening  scene  of  'The  Jungle'  took  shape  in  my  mind, 
and  I  wrote  it  there  and  then;  I  mean  in  my  memory. 
I  never  jotted  a  note,  nor  a  word,  but  two  months  later 
when  I  settled  at  home  to  write  I  wrote  out  that  scene, 
and  I  doubt  if  three  sentences  varied.  I  can  still  do 
that.  ..." 

At  our  first  meeting  we  talked  of  a  hundred  things. 
It  was  evident  at  once  that  Sinclair  had  the  heart  of  the 


UPTON  SINCLAIR  21 

matter  in  him — a  passionate  longing  for  justice  and  a 
better  life  for  the  mass  of  the  people.  I  told  him  how 
greatly  I  admired  "The  Jungle"  and  how  inevitable  it 
was  that  it  should  catdh  on  in  England  before  it  did  in 
the  United  States  and  become  infinitely  more  popular 
in  London  than  in  New  York.  The  aristocratic  class 
in  Great  Britain  is  fairly  well  read  and  has  no  sympathy 
whatever  with  the  new-rich  whether  manufacturers, 
provision  merchants  or  sihopkeepers.  Consequently  they 
read  of  traders'  crimes  with  deHght  and  chuckled  over 
the  exposure  of  the  nefarious  methods  of  the  meat-kings. 
Similarly  a  book  exiposing  the  stupidities  of  the  feudal 
system  with  its  hereditary  powers  and  privileges  would 
be  pretty  sure  to  take  better  in  New  York  than  in  Lon- 
don. 

"Your  book  is  a  great  book,"  I  said  to  Sinclair,  "and 
there  are  more  people  in  England  able  to  appreciate  high 
work  than  there  are  in  the  United  States." 

He  agreed  with  this  dogma  a  little  reluctantly,  I 
thought;  but  he  did  agree  which  sihowed  extraordinary 
fairness  of  vision. 

We  parted  regretfully  and  it  was  not  till  long  after- 
wards I  realized  that  I  could  not  paint  him  because  I 
had  seen  no  shortcoming  in  him,  no  whimsies  of  tem- 
per, no  limitation  of  insight,  no  lack  of  sympathy  for 
any  hig)h  endeavor. 

For  years  now  we've  been  in  correspondence  and  since 
I've  edited  Pearson's,  Sinclair  has  written  article  after 
article  for  me  and  at  length  I'm  able,  I  think,  to  trace 
the  orbit  of  his  mind.    For  if  this  war  has  done  nothing 


22  CONTEMPORARY  PORTRAITS 

else  it  has  tested  friendship  and  tried  men  as  by  fire; 
forcing  them  to  reveal  themselves  to  the  very  innermost 
dhamher  of  the  heart. 

Moreover,  I  have  now  read  all  Sinclair's  writings  and 
I  may  as  well  confess  it  at  once  there's  a  Puritanism  in 
him  that  I  can't  stomach  and  that,  I  believe,  injures  all 
his  work.  There  is  no  passionate  love-story  in  any  of 
his  writings.  Take  his  latest  work,  "King  Coail,"  which 
has  just  been  published  by  Macmillan.  In  "King  Coal" 
there  is  a  superb  Irish  girl  who  confesses  her  love  for 
the  hero  and  offers  herself  to  him  only  to  be  told  by 
him  that  he  is  in  love  with  another  girl  and  engaged  to 
her.  There  is  no  love-story  in  "Love's  Pilgrimage,"  or 
in  "Manassas"  or  in  "The  Jungle."  Yet  I  have  an  un- 
reasoned conviction  that  the  greatest  stories  of  the  world 
are  love-stories  and  no  Tendenz-Schrift,  no  novel-with- 
a-purpose,  however  high,  is  going  to  live  with  the  tale 
of  Ruth  or  Juliet  or  Manon  Lescaut. 

In  his  essential  make-up  Sinclair  is  more  like  Arnold 
Bennett  than  Wells.  Arnold  Bennett,  too,  has  never 
been  able  to  write  a  love-story;  but  then  he  has  not 
Sinclair's  insight  into  social  conditions,  nor  Sinclair's 
passion  for  justice.  His  shortcomings  don't  matter  much 
while  Sinclair's  fill  one  with  regret.  So  few  are  called 
to  great  work.  Why  will  not  Sinclair  put  his  hand  to 
the  plow  and  give  us  the  masterpiece  we  expect  from  him. 

It  seems  to  me  that  he  may  do  this  at  any  time.  He 
appears  to  have  all  the  powers  necessary  and  he  sees  him- 
self with  the  detachment  of  genius.  The  other  day  he 
sent  me  a  eulogy  of  Jack  London  that  I  thought  over- 


UPTON  SINCLAIR  23 

pitched.  I  upraised  Emerson  to  him  and  Poe  and  Whit- 
man in  comparison,  and  in  reply  he  answered  me  thus: 

"I  find  London  more  interesting  as  a  personality  than 
any  of  the  men  you  mention.  Emerson  is  much  nearer 
my  own  temperament  because  he  had  a  Puritan  con- 
science ;  but  he  was  very  apt  to  run  to  abstractions  and 
to  facile  optimisms.  .  .  .  Poe  had  imagination  without 
conscience.  .  .  .  Jack  London  was  antagonistic  to  me  in 
many  ways  but  he  had  the  eternal  spirit  of  youth." 

Excellent  criticism  this,  though  I  don't  agree  witih 
the  classification;  ^gmerson  is  among  the  world's  think- 
ers, the  greatest  American  after  Whitman,  whereas 
London  in  my  opinion  has  done  nothing  that  will  live. 
But  it  is  "the  Puritan  conscience"  or  rather  the  Puritan 
strain  in  Sinclair,  thinning  his  blood,  which  I  regard  as 
perhaps  his  most  serious  limitation.  Here  again  is  his 
own  statement  on  the  subject: 

"Some  day  I  hope  to  write  a  noveH  I  don't  know  what 
the  name  of  it  will  be,  but  in  my  own  thougthts  I  call  it 
my  "Sex  Utopia."  I  am  going  to  try  to  indicate  a  solu- 
tion based  upon  science  and  adjusted  to  the  economic 
changes  which  I  feel  are  ipending." 

I  find  in  this  last  sentence  the  essence,  the  quiddity 
of  Upton  Sinclair.  He  would  seek  to  solve  even  this 
problem  with  his  head  and  not  with  this  heart.  Yet 
Vauvenargues  found  the  supreme  word  when  he  said : 
"All  great  thoughts  come  from  the  heart."  Now  how 
would  the  heart  solve  this  puzzle  which  arises  chiefly 
from  the  polygamist  desire  of  man  ? 

It  seems  probable  to  me  that  the  virginity  and  chas- 


24  CONTEMPORARY  PORTRAITS 

tity  of  women  will  come  in  time  to  be  less  and  less  ap- 
preciated or  desired.  In  this  particular  as  in  many  others, 
the  French  appear  to  be  leading  civilization.  At  the 
bottom  of  their  hearts  t^hey  think  chastity  a  matter  of 
small  moment  (la  rigolade)  and  they  esteem  free  unions 
when  they  are  serious  just  as  respectfully  as  marriages. 
The  Anglo-Saxons  will  of  course  demand  definite  in- 
structions and  for  them  the  solution  has  already  been 
indicated. 

When  George  Meredith  came  before  the  problem  he 
did  not  Ihesitate  to  advocate  "marriages  for  a  term  of 
years,  say  ten,  due  provision  being  made  for  the  chil- 
dren." 

But  Sinclair  would  have  "a  solution  based  upon 
science,"  even  in  a  matter  like  this  which  is  eminently 
an  affair  of  the  heart  and  only  to  be  settled  by  each 
pair  for  tihemselves.  But  at  his  best  he  sees  deeper. 
Here  is  his  thoug'ht: 

"I  was  brought  up  a  Christian,  and  I  followed  'the 
ascetic  ideal  until  I  was  married  at  twenty-one.  I  have 
since  come  to  think  that  ideal  perverted;  but  on  the 
other  hand,  I  have  seen  so  many  deplorable  results  of 
promiscuous  experimenting  among  radica'Is  tlhat  I  am 
very  cautious  in  the  ideas  I  set  forth. 

"I  can  not  believe  in  the  present  institution  of  marriage- 
plus-prostitution.  I  do  believe  in  early  marriage,  with 
divorce  by  mutual  consent  at  any  time.  All  of  our  think- 
ing about  sex  must  at  the  present  stage  of  things  b'e 
conditioned  by  the  fact  of  venereal  disease,  which  is  so 
wide-sipread,  so  subtle,  and  difficult  to  be  sure  about. 


UPTON  SINCLAIR  25 

On  this  account  any  sensible  person  would  wish  to  keep 
very  close  to  monogamy. 

"On  this,  as  well  as  on  higher  grounds,  I  advocate 
very  early  marriage  with  the  prevention  of  conception 
until  a  later  period.  This  early  marriage  ought  to  be 
sensibly  regarded  as  a  trial  marriage,  and  there  should 
be  no  children  until  it  was  reasonably  certain  that  the 
couple  was  well  mated. 

"Ultimately  I  look  forward  to  maternity  pensions, 
co-operative  homes,  such  as  I  tried  to  found  at  Helicon 
Hall,  and  community  care  of  children,  w<hich  will  relax 
the  present  strict  family  regime.  I  mean  it  will  set  free 
the  parents  from  being  slaves  to  their  children.  At  pres- 
ent no  intellectual  people  can  have  children  unless  they 
are  very  wealthy.  I  know  many  wretchedly  miserable 
people  who  stay  together  on  the  dhildren's  account,  and 
yet  it  doesn't  really  help  the  children  who  know  their  ^ 
parents  quarrel  and  learn  to  disregard  both  of  them." 

This  statement  seems  to  me  full  of  interest  yet  un- 
reasonably rational  if  I  may  so  speak.  I  think  the  prob- 
lem altogether  too  complex  to  b'e  solved  at  this  time ; 
to  attempt  to  solve  it  by  "co-operative  »homes,"  seems  to 
me  amusing.  Of  course  the  community  should  be  glad 
to  take  care  of  all  derelict  children,  but  most  mothers 
would  not  willingly  surrender  their  rights  over  their  off- 
spring. The  main  thing  is  now  to  make  divorce  as  easy 
as  marriage,  and  to  be  tolerant  and  sympathetic  to  all 
those  who  go  their  own  way  scorning  convention  and 
custom.    But  now  to  come  to  the  question  of  the  day : 

Why  does  Sinclair  take  sides  with  the  Socialists  who 


26 


CONTEMPORARY  PORTRAITS 


are  in  favor  of  prosecuting  this  unholy  world-war  with  all 
vigor?  He  is,  of  course,  a  far  abler  man  than  Charles 
Edward  ftussell;  far  better  informed  too;  yet  he  holds 
similar  opinions.  He  is  convinced  that  we  must  democ- 
;ratize  Germany  in  some  way  or  other;  he  has  persuaded 
himself  that  the  German  cherishes  dreams  of  world 
domination.  He  does  not  even  rise  to  the  height  of 
the  English  socialists  w<ho  declared  the  other  day  that 
no  one  nation  was  responsible  for  the  war,  that  all  the 
combatant  peoples  were  equally  to  blame.  He  writes 
me  that  "if  we  had  failed  to  combat  the  submarine 
threat,  we  should  have  made  a  blunder  as  tragic  as  if 
we  had  failed  to  support  Lincoln  in  i860,  but  I  want 

(to  make  clear  that  ray  militarism  is  only  for  the  period 
before  a  German  revolution;  after  t^hat  I  am  for  a  revo- 
lution in  America  and  for  nothing  else." 

My  disagreement  with  Sinclair  on  these  matters  is 
fundamental;  I  want  as  many  different  forms  of  gov- 
ernment as  there  are  different  peoples  and  different 
flowers  in  a  garden.  The  genius  of  the  Russian  and 
perhaps  of  the  German,  is  towards  Socialism,  as  the 
genius  of  the  Englishman  and  the  American  is  towards 
individualism ;  why  should  any  people  wish  to  constrain 
another  ? 

During  the  war  our  differences  came  to  a  break.  Sin- 
clair stated  in  his  paper  that  Lincoln  had  abrogated  in- 
dividual liberty  as  completely  as  Wilson  and  had  sup- 
pressed as  many  newpapers,  I  denied  this  and  asked 
Sinclair   for  proofs.     He  wrote  saying  he  hadn't  the 


UPTON  SINCLAIR  27 

needful  books  at  hand  and  after  the  war  admitted  that 
he  had  exaggerated. 

Such  a  difference  between  us  may  seem  small;  but 
it  is  important  I  think.  I  believe  that  the  force  of  gravi- 
tation operates  on  minds  as  on  bodies;  that  the  centre- 
seeking  force  acts  in  proportion  to  the  mass  and  there- 
fore I  anticipated  a  vastly  greater  patriotism  and  im- 
patience of  opposition  in  1917-18  than  in  1863-4,  and 
the  herd- feeling  showed  itself  almost  to  delirium.  I 
thought  it,  tjherefore,  the  first  duty  of  every  able  man 
to  defend  the  liberties  of  the  individual.  I  was  hurt 
khat  Sinclair  should  have  thrown  himself  madly  on  the 
pide  of  the  herd-instinct  already  far  too  powerful, 

I  have  indicated  such  differences  of  opinion  between 
us  because  in  the  main  I  am  in  profound  agreement  with 
Sinclair  and  recognize  him  as  a  lover  of  truth  at  all  costs. 

Take  for  instance  his  views  on  personal  immortality; 
the  subject  Emerson  would  not  discuss  with  Carlyle 
though  he  recognized  their  fundamental  agreement.  Here 
is  what  Sinclair  thinks : 

"My  attitude  is  a  peculiar  one.  I  stopped  thinking 
about  it  when  I  was  seventeen,  which  was  when  I  gave 
up  calling  myself  a  Christian.  I  have  had  only  a  mild 
curiosity  about  it  since,  because  the  present  life  is  so  in- 
tensely interesting  to  me.  If  the  forces  which  gave  me 
this  life  should  see  fit  to  give  any  more  I  will  be  pleased, 
but  I  do  not  hold  them  under  any  obligation  to  do  so,  and 
the  probabilities  look  to  me  as  if  they  would  not  do  so. 
Of  course  we  have  to  admit  that  there  is  a  Divinity  which 
shapes  our  ends  because  we  are  products  of  instinct,  and 


28  CONTEMPORARY  PORTRAITS 

our  reason  has  been  unfolded  out  of  instinct,  but  I  have 
the  idea  that  reason  is  or  will  become  a  higher  power  than 
instinct.  My  religion  is  the  reUgion  of  experimental 
science,  which  I  believe  will  ultimately  remodel  and  re- 
create all  life." 

Sinclair's  view  is  nearly  mine;  but  I  have  no  interest 
in  personal  immortality  at  all.  It  seems  to  me  a  child's 
dream.  I  only  wish  I  had  realized  earlier  all  one  could  do 
with  this  life  and  with  oneself  if  only  one  had  understood 
man's  god-like  power  in  youth.  Goethe  came  near  the 
truth : 

"Die  Zeit  ist  mein  Vermaechtnis 
Wie  herrlich  weit  und  breit. 

Die  Zeit  ist  mein  Vermaechtnis 
Mein  Acker  ist  die  Zeit" 

But  even  Goethe  did  not  tell  us  how  glorious  our  in- 
heritance was,  how  infinite  our  powers.  We  can  shape 
ourselves  into  Supermen  if  we  will,  or  better  even  than 
that :  we  are  not  only  sons  of  man ;  but  of  God 
as  well,  and  able  to  put  ourselves  into  perfect  re- 
lation with  the  Spirit  that  made  the  world  and  is  still 
growing  to  its  divine  fulfilment.  And  as  God  one  will 
be  able  not  only  to  reveal  hitherto  undreamed  of  pos- 
sibilities in  the  soul,  but  also  exercise  an  influence  which 
shall  alter  and  beautify  the  earth-vesture  of  the  Spirit  in 
a  way  altogether  incredible  to  us  today.  I  believe  that 
as  we  get  better,  we  ameliorate  unconsciously  the  climate 
and  land  in  which  we  live.  Blizzards  and  heat  waves  are 
leaving  New  York  as  we  grow  more  humane,  more  con- 


UPTON  SINCLAIR  29 

siderate  of  others.  The  sunsets  here  are  not  so  lovely  as 
those  of  the  Burgundian  plateau  because  we  are  too  heed- 
less to  love  them  as  the  French  do;  but  our  skies  are 
inimitably  higher  here  and  the  air  ineffably  lightsome  be- 
cause with  all  our  shortcomings,  and  they  are  maddening, 
we  have  a  loftier  ideal  and  a  more  unselfish  than  any 
Latin  people. 

It  will  be  said  that  I  have  fallen  into  transcendentalism 
and  lost  myself  in  imaginings  but  imaginative  speculation 
is  to  writing  what  sky  is  to  a  landscape  and  I  will  not 
even  beg  my  reaider's  pardon  for  the  flight. 

To  return  to  Sinclair ;  I  am  not  only  in  close  agreement 
with  him,  but  I  have  a  very  genuine  admiration  for  his 
extraordinary  talent.  It  is  seldom  that  men  admire  those 
who  resemble  them  closely.  As  Anatole  France  was  fond 
of  saying,  "I  must  know  all  that  my  contemporaries  are 
thinking  so  I  never  read  them:  they  don't  interest  me." 

I  have  over  Sinclair  the  sad  superiority  of  the  senior : 
I  am  more  than  twenty  years  older  than  he  is  and  so 
inferior  to  him  as  a  younger-bom  of  Time.  He  is  not 
yet  forty  and  when  I  think  of  all  I  have  learned  since  I 
was  forty  I  am  ashamed  of  finding  any  fault  in  him ;  for 
in  the  next  twenty  years  he  may  outgrow  all  his  limita- 
tions and  make  my  judging  appear  impertinent.  But  at 
the  moment,  sixty  has  perhaps  some  right  to  tell  forty 
how  to  steer  between  Scylla  andCharybdis  between  too 
little  self-restraint  and  too  tight  a  rein  particularly  if  sixty 
is  inclined  as  in  this  case,  to  advocate  a  more  complete 
self-abandonment. 

In  my  opinion  "The  Jungle"  is  so  superb  and  splendid 


30  CONTEMPORARY  PORTRAITS 

an  achievement  that  it  justifies  us  in  hoping  even  greater 
things  from  Upton  Sinclair.  His  criticism,  too,  of  others, 
is  excellent;  penetrating  at  once  and  sympathetic:  he 
even  sees  himself  with  exceptional  detachment  and  fair- 
ness. To  set  bounds  to  his  accomplishment  would  be 
merely  impudent;  but  I  am  sorry  that  he  has  written 
"King  Coal"  which  is  merely  another  Socialist  novel. 

Again  and  again  I  return  to  it:  I  wish  he  would  fall 
desperately  in  love  as  one  falls  in  love  at  forty  when  the 
heat  of  summer  is  still  painting  itself  in  gorgeous  colors 
on  every  fruit  and  every  leaf,  making  even  the  forest  a 
flower-bed  of  indescribable  richness  and  beauty. 
*  He  tells  me  he  is  married  again  and  happy.  In  Pasadena 
he  says  the  wildflowers  are  tinted  like  orchids  and  breathe 
forth  an  almost  intolerable  wealth  of  perfume.  That's 
the  place  for  this  Emersonian.  I  want  him  intoxicated 
with  the  heady  fragrance  of  love. 


John  Galsworthy 


JOHN  GALSWORTHY:    A   NOTABLE 
ENGLISHMAN 

JOHN  GALSWORTHY  began  his  literary  work 
about  thirty  by  writing  a  novel;  in  the  next  ten 
years  he  had  produced  three  or  four;  I  looked 
through  one  of  them,  but  didn't  think  much  of  it;  the 
feeling  in  it  was  not  profound  and  the  style  meager  -tame. 
In  1906,  when  he  was  forty,  "The  Man  of  Property" 
appeared,  and  about  the  same  time  a  play  of  his,  "The 
Silver  Box,"  made  a  sort  of  hit.  I  read  "The  Man  of 
Property,"  but  it  did  not  change  my  opinion  materially, 
though  it  showed  developmeat.  Galsworthy  had  taken 
the  next  step  and  now  used  an  economy  of  means  that 
betokened  a  mastery  of  his  instrument. 

There  was  a  good  deal  of  talk  about  him  at  this  time 
and  I  gathered  that  he  was  a  Devon  man,  belonged  to 
the  so-called  upper  middle-class  and  was  fairly  well-to- 
do.  Suddenly,  in  1910  I  think  it  was,  his  play,  "Jus- 
tice," struck  the  nerves  and  drew  the  town.  The  piece 
was  well  constructed,  that  we  had  expected,  and  at  the 
same  time  the  morality  of  our  "justice"  was  put  on  trial 
and  our  legal  punishment  shown  to  be  tragic.  With 
"Justice"  Galsworthy  came  into  the  first  rank  of  con- 
temporaries, was  now  someone  to  know  and  watch. 

I  was  not  much  in  London  at  the  time  and  we  didn't 
meet.    The  other  day  I  heard  that  he  was  to  lecture  in 

31 


S2  CONTEMPORARY  PORTRAITS 

the  afternoon  at  the  Aeolian  Hall,  New  York,  and  I 
went.  The  hall  was  more  than  half  full — an  excellent 
audience. 

Galsworthy  came  to  the  platform  in  ordinary  walk- 
ing clothes,  went  over  to  the  reading-desk,  smoothed 
out  his  MSS.  and  began  half  to  recite,  half  to  read  his 
lecture.  He  is  about  medium  height,  spare  of  habit  and 
vigorous,  his  head  long,  well-shaped;  his  features  fairly 
regular,  a  straight  nose,  high  forehead;  he  is  almost 
completely  bald  and  wears  glasses.  His  voice  is  very 
pleasant,  clear  and  strong  enough;  he  uses  it  without 
much  modulation ;  gets  his  effects  rather  by  pauses  than 
by  emphasis;  has  every  peculiarity  of  the  writer  and 
not  the  speaker. 

His  essay  dealt  with  the  various  elements  of  forma- 
tive force  in  our  civilization.  It  was  interspersed  clev- 
erly with  stories,  not  invented  by  the  speaker,  and  I 
caught  myself  saying  again  and  again  half  in  approval, 
"how  English  he  is  and  how  pleasant!" 

Then  it  struck  me  that  if  I  could  give  Americans  this 
mental  picture  of  Galsworthy  as  an  Englishman  of  the 
best  class  and  an  excellent  specimen  to  boot,  it  might 
be  interesting;  do  some  good;  at  any  rate  the  portrait 
would  be  worth  doing.  Accordingly,  at  the  end  of  the 
first  hour,  I  began  to  note  what  he  said,  or  was  it  that 
about  this  time  he  began  to  say  things  that  interested 
me? 

He   spoke   of   Bolshevism   at    some   length   and   very 
sensibly,  with  infinitely  more  understanding,  of  course, 


JOHN  GALSWORTHY  33 

than  Senators  Overman,  Wolcott  and  Con:»pany,  though 
without  sympathy. 

In  the  evolution  of  human  society,  ihe  said,  a  revolt, 
and  much  more  a  revolution,  was  in  itself  a  proof  of 
injustice,  of  wrong  done  probably  to  the  lowest  classes, 
and  of  suffering  brought  upon  the  workmen  and  their 
families  unjustly.  Clearly  the  lessons  taught  by  Car- 
lyle  have  at  length  sunk  into  the  English  consciousness 
and  tinged  all  thougfht. 

Not  a  word  did  Galsworthy  say  about  "outrages,"  of 
which  we  have  heard  so  much  from  our  lawmakers  who 
are  far  too  busy  to  restrain  lynchings;  but  a  caution 
against  accepting  glib  statements  of  the  press  that  were 
manifestly  inaccurate. 

The  press,  Mr.  Galsworthy  insisted,  should  be  very 
careful  to  tell  the  truth  and  the  whole  truth,  or  its  in- 
fluence might  be  evil  rather  than  good.  Did  he  mean  to 
hint  that  our  American  papers  were  more  careless  of 
truth  than  even  English  papers?  I  think  he  did,  and  as 
far  as  the  "kept"  press  goes  I  believe  he  would  have  been 
justified  in  speaking  his  mind  plainly. 

But  now  to  return  to  Bolshevism.  It  never  seemed  to 
occur  to  Mr.  Galsworthy  that  the  motive  power  of 
revolution  might  not  be  so  much  an  uprising  against 
injustice  and  a  resistance  of  wrong  as  an  attempt  to 
realize  a  great  hope,  a  resolve  to  shatter  the  framework 
of  society  to  bits  in  order  to  remould  it  "nearer  to  the 
heart's  desire."  But  if  he  had  known  Lenin  or  Trotzky 
or  indeed  any  of  the  English  labor  leaders,  such  as 
Clynes  or  Thomas  or  Lansbury,  he  would  have  known 


34  CONTEMPORARY  PORTRAITS 

that  there  is  a  new  ideal  abVoad  in  the  world  and  the 
hearts  of  men  are  thrilling  with  a  glorious  hope  of  end- 
ing or  at  least  of  mending  this  dreadful  competitive 
society,  all  organized  by  and  for  individtial  greed  where 
the  many  sheep  are  the  prey  of  the  few  wolves,  and  in- 
justice is  built  up  to  insane  lengths  by  the  principle 
of  inheritance. 

But  your  well-ibred  Englishman  is  always  an  upholder 
of  the  established  fact,  always  prone  to  find  virtue  in 
whatever  exists.  He  would  make  some  man  of  property, 
some  educated  Sancho  Panza  his  hero  and  the  American, 
it  now  appears,  would  go  even  further  and  turn  Don 
Quixote's  idealism  into  comic  relief  or  even  confine  the 
noble  Don  himself  in  some  lunatic  asylum  or  jail. 

Galsworthy  went  on  to  speak  of  the  League  of  Nations 
as  another  influence  for  good  in  our  civilization,  and 
here  I  confess  his  Anglicism  surprised  me.  He  declared 
very  contemptuously  that  the  League  of  Nations  in  his 
opinion  was  "  a  lost  dog"  save  in  so  far  as  it  was  founded 
on  Anglo-Aknerican  unity.  I  simply  gasped  at  this  way 
of  ensuring  a  world  peace.  And  his  English  concep- 
tion of  democracy  was  just  a  little  one-sided.  "A  democ- 
racy," he  said,  "like  every  other  system  of  government, 
is  there  to  pick  out  the  best  men  and  give  them  the 
greatest  amount  of  power;  in  fact  a  democracy  is  there 
simply  to  affirm  the  true  spirit  of  aristocracy." 

It  was  plain  that  in  spite  of  clear-cut  phrases  and  the 
eJpigrammatic  endings  of  not  a  few  of  his  paragraphs 
Mr.  Galsworthy  was  steadily  losing  his  hold  of  his  au- 
dience.     The    most    English-loving    Americans    would 


JOHN  GALSWORTHY  35 

hardly  agree  with  this  definition  of  democracy,  and  per- 
haps Mr.  Galsworthy  felt  this,  for  his  peroration  was 
evidently  designed  as  a  sop  to  American  feeling.  With 
much  earnestness,  and  Mr.  Galsworthy  is  able  to  convey 
a  great  sense  of  seriousness  and  sincerity  in  his  quiet 
way,  he  declared  that  the  most  perfect  man,  the  greatest 
civilizing  influence  in  four  centuries,  was — George 
Washington! — not  Owen,  or  Fourrier,  or  Marx;  not 
Goethe,  or  Lincoln,  or  Carlyle,  no,  Washington.  And 
that  was  the  end. 

A  day  or  two  afterwards  I  had  a  talk  with  Gals- 
worthy in  his  hotel. 

Seen  close  to,  his  face  becomes  more  interesting;  the 
serious  blue  eyes  can  laugh;  the  lips  are  large  and  well- 
cut,  promising  a  good  deal  of  feeling,  but  the  character- 
istic expression  of  the  face  is  seriousness  and  sincerity. 

I  began  by  praising  his  insistence  that  a  democracy 
as  a  method  of  government  must  be  judged  by  its  success 
in  producing  the  best  men. 

"Still,  that  is  not  all  the  truth,  is  it?"  I  queried. 
"Surely  the  sense  that  the  race  is  an  open  one  and  that 
we  all  have  had  a  chance  in  it  makes  defeat  easier  to 
bear  than  when  some  person  is  put  above  us  simply  be- 
cause he  is  the  son  of  his  father." 

Mr.  Galsworthy  shrugged  his  shoulders;  it  seemed  im- 
material to  him. 

"Don't  you  feel,"  I  went  on,  "that  while  there  is  a 
little  greater  love  of  freedom  perhaps  in  England  than 
in  America,  there  is  a  certain  sense  of  equality  here  that 
is  unknown  and  unappreciated  in  Great  Britain?" 


36  CONTEMPORARY  PORTRAITS 

He  looked  at  me  as  if  he  hardly  understood. 

"I  merely  mean,"  I  went  on,  "that  the  ordinary  man 
in  America  is  able  if  he  gets  an  opportunity  to  speak  to 
a  governor,  or  senator  or  the, President  and  shake  hands 
with  him,  on  an  equal  footing,  whereas  in  England  he 
would  find  that  impossible  with  any  person  in  authority. 
In  fact,  even  the  distance  from  Mr.  Lloyd  George,  let  us 
say,  to  Lord  Lansdowne,  is  a  very  long  one  indeed." 

"Well,  perhaps,"  said  Galsworthy,  desirous  of  being 
fair-minded  but  unpersuaded. 

I  broke  new  ground.  "Yciur  praise  of  George  Wash- 
ington absolutely  took  our  breath  away.  A  good  many 
Americans  think  Lincoln  a  far  greater  man,  and  I  am 
afraid  I  share  that  view.  How  on  earth  did  you  get 
the  idea  of  George  Washington's  greatness?" 

"He  did  such  great  things,"  said  Galsworthy,  "and 
he  remained  so  eminently  well-balanced — so  sane." 

I  could  not  help  smiling:  the  English  ideal  of  bal- 
ance and  sanity  ito  be  the  measuring-stick  of  humanity. 

"I'm  just  reading  of  Tom  Paine,"  I  said,  "I  cannot 
help  thinking  him  a  far  bigger  man  than  Washington. 
Perhaps  it  would  do  me  good  to  write  a  eulogy  of  Wash- 
ington and  you  a  panegyric  of  Paine,"  and  we  laughed. 

The  talk  wandered  off  to  Ireland  and  Egypt  and  Mes- 
opotamia. Galsworthy  said  that  an  American  had  told 
him  that  the  poor  people  had  never  been  so  well  off  in 
Mesopotamia  as  since  the  English  had  come  there:  he 
thought  that  the  fellaheen  in  Egypt  had  never  been  so 
prosperous  as  under  British  rule;  but  he  was  too  fair- 
minded   and   truth-loving  to   delude   himself   with  the 


JOHN  GALSWORTHY  37 

same  argument  in  regard  to  Ireland.  He  evidently 
believed  that  the  failure  of  British  rule  in  Ireland  was 
an  economic  failure.  He  did  not  attempt  to  shut  his 
eyes  to  the  fact  that  the  population  of  Ireland  under 
British  rule  has  shrunk  from  over  eight  millions  to 
under  four  in  less  than  a  century.  Still  an  Irish  Re- 
public seemed  to  him  extravagant,  almost  absurd.  He 
wanted  to  know  why  the  Irish  demands  have  increased. 
Why  the  Irish  wanted  Home  Rule  thirty  years  ago 
while  today  they  want  an  Irish  Republic? 

I  laughed.  "I  might  say  that  it  was  a  result  of  fur- 
ther exiperience  of  British  rule,"  I  replied,  "but  I  do  not 
think  that,  I  think  the  difficulty  is  a  little  the  Egyptian 
difficulty.  Forty  or  fifty  years  ago  the  priests  of  Ire- 
land used  to  be  educated  on  the  continent,  at  St.  Omer  in 
France.  Now  they  are  all  educated  at  Maynooth  and 
are  merely  educated  Irish  peasants.  Formerly  tbey  had 
a  cosmopolitan  training  which  inclined  them  to  toler- 
ance of  Englis'h  ways  of  thought  and  feeling;  now  it  is 
different:  they  are  pure  Irish, 

Again  Mr.  Galsworthy's  serious  eyes  brooded: 

"I  wonder  why  you  don't  agree  with  my  view  of  a 
League  of  Nations?"  he  said.  "It  seems  to  me  so  plain 
that  the  peace  of  the  world  can  only  be  kept  by  an  Anglo- 
Almerican  alliance." 

"What  heresy,"  I  cried.  "I  think  that  such  a  league 
would  sooner  or  later  provoke  a  counter-league  of  Russia 
and  Germany  and,  perhaps,  Japan  and  result  in  another 
world-war.  I  don't  believe  that  Russia,  Japan  and  Ger- 
many will  ever  accept  British  supremacy  of  the  seas  now 


38  CONTEMPORARY  PORTRAITS 

that  they  have  found  out  how  vital  it  is  to  success  in  war. 
Do  you  think  that  Russia  with  180,000,000  of  peCple — a 
country  three  times  the  size  of  the  United  States  and 
with  almost  double  the  population — will  sit  down  for 
say  a  century  to  come  in  a  position  of  absolute  inferior- 
ity to  England  and  America  and  accept  their  alien 
domination?    The  whole  idea  to  me  is  insane. 

"Like  a  great  many  others  I  dreamed  of  another 
League  of  Nations.  I  believed  that  Mr.  Wilson  would 
call  the  representatives  of  Germany  and  Russia  to  the 
peace  table ;  and  that  he  would  begin  by  saying  that  here 
there  was  no  conquered  and  no  conqueror;  that  now  the 
Germans  and  Russians  had  got  rid  of  their  autocratic 
governments  the  time  had  come  to  treat  them  as  friends 
and  equals  and  settle  everything  equally  and  justly — 
generously  even.  Lincoln  would  have  done  this.  Now 
Austria  is  dismembered  and  starving:  Germany  maimed 
and  mutilated:  Russia  attacked  north,  south,  east,  and 
west  by  her  own  Allies  while  the  conquerors  squabble  and 
fight  over  the  spoils." 

The  light  died  out  of  Galworthy's  eyes.  "We  must 
agree  to  differ,"  he  said  drily. 

The  talk  drifted  to  books  and  writers,  and  quite 
honestly  I  praised  his  "Justice,"  confessing  that  I  pre- 
ferred it  to  "The  Man  of  Property,"  which  seemed  to 
surprise  him.  "There  is  infinitely  more  feeling  in  it," 
I  said,  "a  passionate  appeal  to  a  higher  justice  than  is 
to  be  found  in  English  law," 

"What  a  rebel  you  are!"  he  exclaimed. 

"What  are  you  now  going  to  tell  us  about  America?" 


JOHN  GALSWORTHY  39 

"I  know  so  little,"  he  retplied;  "I  have  been  here 
only  three  months  and  I  was  here  before  in  1912.  It  is 
so  hard  to  learn  anything  about  it;  it  seems  to  be  with- 
out marked  features.    How  can  an  artist  picture  it?" 

"Yet  O.  Henry  did,"  I  said. 

"Yes,"  he  admitted  at  once.  "Yes,  very  interesting 
work  his;  very  vital." 

"And  David  Graham  Phillips,"  I  went  on.  "Have 
you  read  him?" 

"No,"  he  replied;  "No,  I  think  I  have  read  one  book 
of  his;  it  didn't  make  much  impression  on  me." 

"Yet  he  is  almost  of  Balzac's  class,"  I  ventured. 

"Really,"  he  cried  in  wonder;  "really;  you  surprise 
me!    I  must  read  him.     What  are  his  best  books?" 

"I'll  send  some  to  you."    I  replied. 

"That  would  be  kind  of  you,"  he  said,  "and  then: 

"What  do  you  think  of  Masefield  ?  I  admire  some  of 
his  work  so  much." 

"I  think  Ihim  over- rated,"  I  refplied,  "just  as  I  think 
the  war-poets  altogether  over-estimated." 

"Did  you  like  "Nan?"  he  insisted. 

"Not  particularly,"  I  replied. 

"Did  you  meet  Masefield  \\^hen  he  was  in  New  York  ?" 

"No,  I  had  no  wish  to  meet  him.  You  know  if  you 
hadn't  written  "Justice"  I  probably  shouldn't  be  here 
today.  I  look  on  'Justice'  as  a  great  play:  I  put  it 
with  Hauptman's  'Die  Weber,'  I  am  grateful  to  you 
for  it.    Go  on  in  that  vein.    What  are  you  doing  now  ?" 

"Another  novel,"  he  said. 


40  CONTEMPORARY  PORTRAITS 

"Ah!  I  said,  "I  have  always  thought  a  new  novel 
meant  a  new  love  affair — a  new  passion." 

"O,  no,"  he  replied.  "Surely  one  love  can  furnish 
forth  a  good  manny  books." 

And  so  we  parted  almost  without  meeting.  To  Gals- 
worthy "democracy"  is  a  mere  word,  and  "the  League 
of  Nations"  nothing  more  than  an  Anglo-American  al- 
liance, and  Russian  Bolshevism,  the  symptomatic  rash 
of  a  social  disease. 

To  some  of  us,  on  the  other  hand,  the  Peace  Confer- 
ence has  been  a  heart-breakir^  disappointment;  democ- 
racy has  in  it  the  sacred  kernel  of  the  brotherhood  of 
man  and  the  Bolshevik  republic  is  the  greatest  and  most 
unselfisih  attempt  ever  made  to  bring  Justice  into  life. 

Galsworthy's  Anglicism  must  not  be  taken  to  be  the 
best  even  in  England.  He  is  handicapped  by  'his  social 
advantages.  The  other  day  I  read  a  speech  of  Robert 
Smillie,  the  labor  leader  of  the  English  miners,  who  has 
reached  a  higher  height  than  any  of  the  so-called  edu- 
cated English.    At  a  recent  meeting  he  said : 

"The  German  and  Austrian  people  are  not  to  be 
blamed  for  the  war.  All  childten  are  our  children, 
w^etfier  they  live  in  England,  France  or  Germany.  If 
it  was  wrong  for  the  Germans  to  come  over  here  to  kill 
men,  women  and  little  babies  with  their  hellish  machines 
of  war,  was  it  not  also  wrong  that  we  should  use  the 
power  we  have  to  starve  the  German  women  and  chil- 
dren?" 

The  heart  of  England  is  not  in  the  educated  classes. 

But  Galsworthy  is  still  growing.    His  new  book  "Five 


JOHN  GALSWORTHY  41 

Tales"  (Scribner's)  forces  me  to  amend  the  above  judg- 
ment which  I  do  gladly.  As  I  have  said  already  I  am 
not  an  admirer  of  his  stories.  And  at  first  this  book 
struck  me  like  the  rest. 

The  first  story  in  it  called  "The  First  and  the  Last" 
seemed  to  me  a  failure ;  none  of  the  personages  in  it  ex- 
cept the  lawyer  brother  was  realized  at  all,  and  he  not 
realized  deeply.  Seventy-five  pages  that  you  forget  at 
once. 

The  next  story,  "A  Stoic" — a  sort  of  tale  of  the  city 
and  company  promotion  and  the  inherent  thefts  of  the 
strong  man  from  the  weak,  is  better  done ;  the  atmosphere 
and  surroundings  are  perfectly  caught ;  the  ability  of  the 
old  commercial  buccaneer  excellently  rendered ;  the  man's 
love  of  power  and  riches ;  his  love,  too,  of  a  good  dinner 
and  a  good  drink — all  splendidly  realized ;  but  the  whole 
thing  sordid,  grimy,  not  lifted  to  the  sunlight  by  any 
passion  or  any  hope.  Two  hundred  pages  of  stuff  for  the 
intelligence;  very  little  for  the  heart;  nothing  for  the 
soul. 

Almost  daunted  I  began  the  next  story,  "The  Apple 
Tree."  and  very  soon  I  became  enchanted;  lost  in  a  real 
love  story — a  love  story  most  beautifully  told.  The  at- 
mosphere and  surroundings  perfectly  rendered;  a  great 
landscape;  the  English  country  in  spring  magically  re- 
presented : 

"Spring  was  a  revelation  to  him  this  year.  In  a  kind  of 
intoxication  he  would  watch  the  pink-white  buds  of  some 
backward  peach  tree  sprayed  up  in  the  sunlight  against 
the  deep  blue  sky,  or  the  trunks  and  limbs  of  the  few 


42  CONTEMPORARY  PORTRAITS 

Scotch  firs,  tawny  in  violet  light,  or  again,  on  the  moor, 
the  gale-bent  larches  in  their  young  green,  above  the 
rusty  black  under-boughs.  Or  he  would  lie  on  the  banks, 
gazing  at  the  clusters  of  dog-violets,  or  up  in  the  dead 
bracken,  fingering  the  pink,  transparent  buds  of  the  dew- 
berry, while  the  cuckoos  called  and  yaffles  laughed,  or  a 
lark,  from  very  high,  dripped  its  beads  of  song.  It  was 
certainly  different  from  any  spring  he  had  ever  known, 
for  spring  was  withia  him,  not  without." 

How  fine  that  is;  the  lark  "dripped  its  beads  of  song!" 
And  the  love  story  itself;  the  passion  of  it  and  the 
abandonment,  more  perfectly  rendered  still.  I  do  not 
think  there  are  many  pages  in  English  of  finer  quality 
than  this,  I  am  going  to  quote.  Tlie  only  one  I  remem- 
ber is  in  "Richard  Feverel,"  and  this  is  worthy  to  be 
remembered  beside  that  most  magnificent  love  idyll : 

"He  caught  hold  of  her  hands,  but  she  shrank  back, 
till  her  passionate  little  face  and  loose  dark  hair  were 
caught  among  the  pink  clusters  of  the  apple  blossom, 
Ashurst  raised  one  of  her  imprisoned  hands  and  put  his 
lips  to  it.  He  felt  how  chivalrous  he  was,  a«d  superior  to 
that  clod  Joe — just  brushing  that  small,  rough  hand  with 
his  mouth !  Her  shrinking  ceased  suddenly ;  she  seemed 
to  tremble  towards  him.  A  sweet  warmth  overtook 
Ashurst  from  top  to  toe.  This  slim  maiden,  so  simple 
and  fine  and  pretty,  was  pleased  then,  at  the  touch  of  his 
lips !  And,  yielding  to  a  swift  impulse,  he  put  his  arms 
round  her,  pressed  her  to  him,  and  kissed  her  forehead. 
Then  he  was  frightened — she  went  so  pale,  closing  her 
eyes,  so  that  the  long  dark  lashes  lay  on  her  pale  cheeks ; 


JOHN  GALSWORTHY  43 

her  hands,  too,  lay  inert  at  her  sides.  The  touch  of  her 
breast  sent  a  quiver  through  him.  "Megan !"  he  sighed 
out,  and  let  her  go.  In  the  utter  silence  a  blackbird 
shouted.  Then  the  girl  seized  his  hand,  put  it  to  her 
cheek,  her  heart,  her  lips,  kissed  it  passionately,  and  fled 
away  among  the  mossy  trunks  of  the  apple  trees,  till  they 
hid  her  from  him." 

The  dreadful  tragedy  of  preferring  a  commonplace 
girl  to  a  "lyric  love"  is  brought  out,  it  is  true,  but  not 
realized  so  successfully.  Megan,  the  little  Welsh  girl, 
who  died  of  love  with  "beauty  printed  on  her,"  is  simply 
unforgetable. 

Just  the  last  words  of  the  story  are  shocking.  It  ought 
to  have  ended  with  Ashurst's  repeating  his  wife's  "Some- 
thing's wanting,"  by  "Yes,  something's  wanting."  But 
the  putting  "his  lips  solemnly  to  his  wife's  forehead" 
sihould  be  cut  out  in  another  edition.  We  are  not  in- 
terested in  the  wife! 

There  are  other  stories  in  the  book,  I  do  not  remember 
them.  I  have  read  this  one  half  a  dozen  times  already, 
and  it  lives  with  me  as  part  of  the  furniture  of  my  mind 
so  long  as  this  machine  shall  last.  It  is  better  than 
"Justice."    It  is  one  of  the  short  stories  of  the  world. 

Having  written  this,  Galsworthy  may  do  anything,  may 
yet  write  a  masterpiece,  will  write  one,  I'd  say,  were  he 
not  an  Englishman.  In  the  realm  of  the  spirit  that  to- 
day is  a  heavy  handicap. 


Gdnninghame  Graham 

Sratnn  bg 
MOORKPARK 


CUNNINGHAME  GRAHAM 

CUNNINGHAME  GRAHAM,  when  I  first  saw  him, 
was  something  more  than  a  very  handsome  man :  he 
was  picturesque  and  had  an  air  with  him.  He  might 
have  been  the  subject  of  a  portrait  by  Zurbaran  of  some 
Spanish  noble  who  had  followed  Cortes.  As  soon  as  I 
knew  him  I  always  called  him  to  myself — El  Conquis- 
tador. Graham  was  above  middle  height,  of  slight 
nervous  strong  figure,  very  well  dressed,  the  waist  even 
defined,  with  a  touch  of  exoticism  in  loose  necktie  or  soft 
hat;  in  coloring  the  reddish  brown  of  a  chestnut;  the 
rufous  hair  very  thick  and  upstanding;  the  brown 
beard  trimmed  to  a  point  and  floating  moustache ;  the  ova' 
of  the  face  a  little  long ;  the  nose  Greek ;  large  blue  eyCi 
that  could  become  inscrutable  as  agate  or  ingenuous,  res- 
ponsive ;  eyes  at  once  keen,  observant  and  reflective ;  both 
light  and  depth  in  them. 

He  was  never  taken  for  a  dandy  or  merely  a  handsome 
gentleman ;  you  felt  a  certain  reserve  in  him  of  pride  or 
perhaps  of  conscious  intelligence ;  he  was  "some  one,"  as 
the  French  say. 

I  noticed  him  first  at  a  Socialist  meeting.  William 
Morris  was  there  and  Bernard  Shaw,  I  think,  and  Cham- 
pion, the  ex-artillery  officer,  and  Hyndman,  the  Marxian 
leader  of  the  party  in  the  mid-eighties.  Graham  had  evi- 
dently not  studied  the  economic  question;  but  was  en- 

45 


•46  CONTEMPORARY  PORTRAITS 

listed  on  the  side  of  the  poor  and  the  workman,  partly  by 
a  sense  of  justice,  partly  by  an  aristocratic  disdain  of 
riches  and  the  unscrupulous  greed  that  acquires  riches. 

"Why  should  we  honor  the  wolves  ?"  was  his  argument, 
"who  break  into  the  sheepfold  and  kill,  not  to  satisfy  their 
hunger,  even ;  one  could  forgive  them  that ;  but  out  of 
blood-lust.  Your  rich  contractor  or  banker  is  a  mere 
blood-sucker;  why  tolerate  him?  Pay  good  watch  dogs 
to  protect  you  and  kill  the  wolves  as  noxious  brutes," 

There  was  disdain  of  his  audience  in  every  word,  in  his 
attitude  even ;  he  had  an  artist's  contempt  for  their  lack  of 
vision,  an  adventurer's  scorn  for  their  muddy,  slow  blood. 
The  next  time  I  met  him  was  riding  in  Hyde  Park.  It 
used  to  be  said  that  nobody  could  ride  in  the  Row  who 
wasn't  properly  dressed,  and  by  "properly"  in  England 
they  mean  conventionally — dark  coat,  dark  trousers 
tightly  strapped  over  patent  boots.  But  Graham  was  in 
breeches  and  brown  boots,  as  indeed  I  was ;  but  then  he 
wore  a  sombrero  besides  and  was  mounted  on  a  mustang 
of  many  colors,  with  inordinately  long  mane  and  tail. 

"Some  circus  rider,"  was  one  remark  I  heard  made 
about  him. 

We  came  together  naturally,  as  outlaws  do;  for  I 
wanted  to  know  why  Graham  rode  a  piebald,  and  he  was 
eager,  as  every  horse-lover,  to  extol  the  qualities  of  his 
mount.  I  found  that,  like  Wilfred  Scawen  Blunt,  the 
poet,  who  believed  in  the  pure  Arab  strain,  Graham  be- 
lieved in  the  speed  of  South  American  mustangs.  I  told 
him  about  Blunt  and  how  he  had  imported  some  of  the 
best-bred  animals  from  the  north  of  Africa.    He  had  ar- 


CUNNINGHAME  GRAHAM  47 

ranged  a  race  with  some  ordinary  English  platers,  and 
his  Arab  fliers  had  been  ignominiously  beaten. 

Graham  wouldn't  believe  it,  and  the  end  of  it  was  we 
made  up  a  race.  We  agreed  to  wait  till  one  o'clock  till 
most  of  the  equestrians  had  gone  home  to  lunch  and  then 
try  our  mounts  up  the  Ladies'  Mile.  The  horse  I  was 
riding  was  nearly  thoroughbred,  but  only  about  15^ 
hands  high,  so  the  match  did  not  look  unfair.  But  the 
English  horse  had  a  rare  turn  of  speed  and  could  do  half 
a  mile  in  about  fifty  seconds,  something  like  racehorse 
pace.  We  told  the  inspector  of  police  of  our  intention, 
and  at  once,  Briton-like,  he  took  a  keen  interest  in  the 
match,  and  said  he  would  tell  his  men  to  keep  the  course 
clear. 

When  we  came  to  Hyde  Park  Corner  abouit  one  o'clock 
we  found  quite  a  little  crowd ;  we  started  at  a  hand  gallop 
and  went  down  the  slope  side  by  side,  the  crowd  cheering 
"Gryhim,  Gryhim !  Well  done,  Gri-irt; !"  in  strong  Cockney 
accents.  As  we  breasted  the  hill  I  slid  forward,  crouch- 
ing on  the  pad,  and  gave  my  horse  his  head,  and  at  once 
we  left  Graham  as  if  he  had  been  standing  still.  When 
I  drew  up  at  the  railings,  I  was  some  200  yards  ahead. 

"You  were  right,"  said  Graham  courteously :  "I'd  never 
have  believed  it.  I'm  just  as  much  astonished  as  you  say 
Blunt  was ;  but  you  don't  ride  a  bit  like  a  cowboy ;  where 
did  you)  get  that  jockey  seat  ?" 

"I'm  rather  ashamed  of  it,"  I  replied.  "I  always  rode 
all  the  races  for  our  Kansas  buMch  as  a  boy  on  the  trail. 
I  was  the  lightest,  and  I  soon  found  out  that  the  further 
forward  I  got  on  the  withers,  the  easier  it  was  for  my 


48  CONTEMPORARY  PORTRAITS 

horse.  But  you  ride  like  a  Centaur,  with  easy  swaying 
balance,  like  the  figures  on  a  Greek  frieze.  I  fall  natur- 
ally into  the  professional  way  of  doing  everything.  I 
suppose  it  is  my  intense  combativeness ;  anyway,  I'm  a 
little  ashamed  of  it  sometimes." 

"Why  should  you  be  ?"  he  replied  courteously.  "I  ima- 
gine it  is  the  desire  in  you  to  excel ;  and  what  better  desire 
could  a  man  have?" 

"It  is  the  desire  to  excel,"  I  answered,  "carried  to 
such  an  extent  that  one  is  careless  of  grace  or  comfort. 
I  sometimes  think  I  should  have  been  better  without  the 
American  'speeding-up'." 

That  race  made  us  friends,  for  Graham  came  to  lunch 
with  me,  and  we  swapped  stories  for  hours,  he  telling  of 
the  Pampas  of  the  Argentine  and  Uruguay,  giving  weird 
word-pictures  of  that  Spanish  and  Indian  civilization,  and 
I  of  the  trail  three  thousand  miles  long  that  ran  from 
Laramie  and  the  Platte  river  down  through  Kansas  and 
Texas  to  the  Rio  Grande : 

"The  old  trail,  the  wide  trail,  the  trail  that  the 
buffalo  made." 

We  had  many  points  of  contact ;  we  were  both  outlaws 
by  nature ;  both  eager  to  live  to  the  uttermost,  preferring 
life  to  any  transcript  of  it.  Moreover,  though  he  knew 
Spanish  and  the  religious-romantic  Spanish  nature  far 
more  intimately  than  I  did,  and  revealed  himself  in  his 
love  of  it,  yet  I  too  had  been  attracted  by  Spain  and  had 
learned  something  of  its  life  and  literature,  just  as  he  had 
got  to  know  a  good  deal  about  America. 


CUNNINGHAME   GRAHAM  49 

His  deep  and  intimate  understanding  of  the  Spanish 
people  had  freed  him  from  the  narrow  English  self-appre- 
ciation by  discovering  to  him  the  hard  materialism  of  the 
Anglo- Saxon  nature.  Every  now  and  then  words  fell 
from  him  and  can  be  found  even  in  his  stories  that  show 
this  detachment: 

"Does  any  Englishman  really  respect  a  woman  im  his 
heart?"  he  asked  one  day,  and  I  could  not  but  smile,  for 
the  same  question  had  come  to  me  so  often  that  I  had  had 
to  answer  it.  It  is  the  exceptional  man  of  any  race  who 
really  esteems  the  feminine  mind  and  spirit.  We  reach 
a  certain  point  in  growth  where  the  way  is  closed  to  us 
tmless  we  begin  to  trust  our  intuitions  and  act  on  them 
as  women  do.  Then  first  we  begin  really  to  respect 
women.  And  as  Englishmen  like  consistency  of  character 
and  strength  better  than  width  of  vision  and  distrust 
change,  without  which  growth  is  impossible,  compara- 
tively few  Englishmen  ever  reach  reverence  for  what  dif- 
fers from  their  essentially  masculine  ideal.  Graham  felt 
all  this  much  as  I  did. 

Then,  too,  he  was  sceptical  of  the  much-vaunted 
modem  "progress."  He  saw  that  the  enormous  growth 
of  wealth  due  in  the  main  to  man's  conquest  of  nature 
had  increased  and  not  lessened  social  inequality,  and 
especially  the  inequality  of  condition.  "The  poor  today 
are  on  the  starvation  line,"  he  used  to  cry  indignantly, 
"while  the  rich  are  portentously  richer  than  ever  before." 
His  sense  of  justice  was  shocked  and  his  vein  of  pessim- 
ism deepened  by  this  observation.  He  did  not  see  that 
all  readjustments  take  time,  centuries  even,  and,  after  all. 


50  CONTEMPORARY  PORTRAITS 

centuries  are  only  moments  in  the  soul's  growth.  I  was 
attracted  by  his  clearness  of  vision,  and  above  all  by  his 
courageous  acceptance  of  all  he  did  see.  Graham  had  no 
wish  to  hoodwink  himself,  and  that  was  a  tie  between  us. 
If  he  had  ever  been  a  student  and  had  submitted  to 
the  training  of  a  German  university  we  might  have  been 
still  more  alike ;  but  Graham  had  always  had  a  silver-gilt 
spoon  in  his  mouth;  he  had  always  had  money  and  posi- 
tion and  had  learned  what  he  liked  and  left  unlearned 
what  did  not  appeal  to  him,  and  that  privileged  position 
has  its  inevitable  drawbacks : 

"Who  never  ate  his  bread  with  tears, 
He  knows  you  not,  you  heavenly  powers." 


The  next  time  I  saw  Graham  was  at  a  meeting  in 
Trafalgar  Square  in  defense  of  free  speech.  I  forget 
what  the  occasion  was ;  but  he  was  there  with  John  Burns 
and  I  think  Shaw,  and  was  cheered  to  the  echo.  No 
finer  or  more  characteristic  pair  than  he  and  Burns  could 
be  imagined ;  his  slight  figure  and  handsome  face  showed 
the  aristocrat  at  his  best,  and  Bums  with  his  square 
powerful  form  and  strong  leonine  head,  was  the  very 
model  of  a  workingman.  Shaw,  a  sort  of  Mephisto  in 
appearance,  but  certainly  a  man  of  genius,  did  not  fit  in 
any  category.  But  Graham's  gallantry  and  Bums'  resolve 
and  Shaw's  talent  were  all  nullified  by  the  brute  force  of 
the  police.  The  end  of  the  scrimmage  was  that  Bums, 
Graham  and  half  a  dozen  others  spent  the  night  in  a  police 
cell  on  some  hypocritical  charge  of  obstructing  the  traffic. 


CUNNINGHAME  GRAHAM  51 

And  next  morning  all  the  middle-class  papers  spoke  with 
contempt  and  disgust  of  both  men,  the  editors  never 
dreaming  that  the  one  was  soon  to  be  a  Cabinet  Minister, 
while  the  other  belonged  to  a  still  higher  class. 

The  next  meeting  with  Graham  that  made  an  impres- 
sion OH  me  was  in  the  House  of  Commons.  In  the  in- 
terval Graham  had  become  a  member  of  the  House,  and 
his  reception  enabled  me  to  judge  it  from  an  altogether 
new  angle. 

"Every  man  finds  his  true  level  in  the  House  of  Com- 
mons," is  a  favorite  shibboleth  of  the  English.  I  had 
always  doubted  it  and  often  argued  about  it  with  Sir 
Charles  Dilke,  who,  by  virtue  of  his  French  training,  was 
peculiarly  fairminded. 

"The  House,"  I  said,  "is  made  up  of  fourth-form 
schoolboys  with  a  leaven  of  men  of  talent.  They  want  to 
be  fair  and  are  fair  to  ordinary  men ;  they  might  even  be 
fair  to  a  man  of  genius  provided  he  had  great  parlia- 
mentary or  oratorical  power;  but  the  highest  form  of 
genius  would  have  a  sorry  reception  there  and  a  hard 
time  of  it." 

Dilke  would  never  admit  it. 

"How  do  you  account  for  the  way  they  took  to  Brad- 
laugh  ?"  he  asked. 

"After  treating  him  for  years  like  a  knave,"  I  replied, 
"they  came  to  recognize  at  long  last  his  high  courage  and 
noble  character,  chiefly  because  he  had  strong  English 
prejudices,  was  an  individualist  and  staunch  believer  in 
the  rights  of  property;  in  other  words,  high  character, 
great  fighting  power  and  second-rate  intelligence  won 


52  CONTEMPORARY  PORTRAITS 

their  hearts  in  the  long  run.  But  the  long  contest  broke 
Bradlaugh,  and  he  died  untimely  in  the  hour  of  triumph." 

"Then  what  do  you  say  of  Tim  Healy?"  Dilke  per- 
sisted; "he's  clever  enough,  God  knows,  and  'has  no 
English  prejudices.  How  do  you  account  for  his  suc- 
cess ?" 

"He's  not  very  successful,"  I  retorted;  "even  now, 
after  twenty  odd  years  of  striving;  but  take  Lord  Hugh 
Cecil;  he  has  everything  the  English  like;  great  name 
and  place;  he  stands,  too,  for  all  the  English  household 
gods ;  believes  in  property,  in  the  oligarchy,  is  unaffected- 
ly religious  and  goes  to  church  twice  every  Sunday ;  and 
yet  because  he  has  a  streak  of  genius  in  him  they  won't 
have  him.  They  give  his  dull  brother.  Lord  Robert  Cecil, 
place  and  power ;  but  they  keep  Lord  Hugh  at  a  distance. 
The  English  simtply  hate  and  fear  genius.  To  them  it  is 
an  unforgivable  sin,  and  that's  why  their  houses  will  be 
left  unto  them  desolate." 

Dilke  wouldn't  have  it,  yet  Cunninghame  Graham 
came  to  the  House  and  the  House  wouldn't  listen  to  him  ; 
simply  gave  him,  or  rather  gave  themselves,  no  chance. 
Of  course,  he  made  all  sorts  of  blunders.  Every  one  is 
listened  to  in  the  House  of  Commons  the  first  time  he 
speaks;  a  maiden  speech  takes  precedence  of  all  others, 
and  so  able  men,  as  a  rule,  make  their  maiden  effort  in 
some  great  debate,  where  they  are  sure  of  a  large 
audience.  Graham,  conscious  probably  of  great  powers, 
wasted  this  opportunity,  and  afterwards  he  would  have 
had  to  make  himself  known  to  the  Speaker  by  constantly 
speaking  to  empty  benches,  and  even  then  would  have 


CUNNINGHAME  GRAHAM  53 

had  to  get  up  half  a  dozen  times  on  any  important  oc- 
casion 'before  he  could  "catch  the  Speaker's  eye,"  as  the 
phrase  goes.  But  whenever  he  prepared,  he  tried  in  vain 
to  catch  the  Speaker's  eye,  and  when  by  assiduity  he  got 
a  chance,  the  waiting  and  the  rebuffs  had  taken  the 
steam  out  of  him.  And  yet  he  was  an  admirable  speaker 
at  his  best,  just  as  he  was  and  is  a  most  excellent  writer. 

How  good  a  writer  he  was  I  learned  soon  after  I  took 
the  editorship  of  The  Saturday  Review  in  1894.  He  came 
in  and  told  me  of  a  recent  visit  he  had  made  to  Spain  and 
Africa  and  how  he  had  enjoyed  the  art  of  the  Prado  and 
the  wild,  ffee  life  in  Morocco. 

"I've  brought  you  a  little  sketch  of  an  incident,"  he 
said,  (handing  me  a  manuscript,  "if  you  care  to  use  it." 

"Surely,"  I  replied  at  once ;  "I'll  be  delighted ;  Fm  cer- 
tain I  shall  have  a  treat."  And  so  strongly  had  Graham's 
personality  affected  me  that  I  did  feel  certain  he  would 
do  noteworthy  work. 

After  he  left  I  found  I  could  not  read  his  handwriting, 
a  dreadful  spidery  scrawl,  so  I  sent  the  sketch  to  the 
printer  and  when  I  read  it  in  print  I  was  charmed.  Gra- 
ham, it  was  clear,  was  a  born  writer  of  the  best;  very 
simple,  without  a  trace  of  pose  or  mannerism  or  effort, 
getting  all  his  effects  by  some  daring  image  or  splash 
of  color — a  strange  trait  of  character  or  weird  peculiarity 
of  mind —  and  above  all  by  a  spiritual  sense  of  the  in- 
timate relation  between  persons  and  scenes,  as  if  the 
Gaucho's  mind  had  some  of  the  vagueness  and  empty 
void  of  the  Pampas  and  as  if  his  soul  was  like  that 
Southern  atmosphere,  subject  to  sudden  rare  storms  of    1 


54  CONTEMPORARY  PORTRAITS 

singular  violence.  Graham  paints  like  one  of  the  school 
of  Goya,  a  Zuloaga,  for  instance,  who  has  been  touched 
by  French  influence. 

I  remember  one  occasion  that  proved  his  genius  as  a 
writer  triumphantly.  One  evening  I  heard  that  William 
Morris  had  died.  Next  day  Arthur  Symons  asked  me 
to  let  him  write  on  Morris'  poetry;  a  little  later  Shaw 
blew  in  with  the  declaration  that  he  wanted  to  write  on 
Morris  as  a  Socialist. 

"All  right,"  I  agreed;  "but  stretch  yourself,  for  Gra- 
ham will  describe  the  funeral,  and  his  stuff'll  be  hard 
to  beat." 

Shaw  grinned;  he,  too,  knew  that  Graham  was  a 
master. 

When  the  articles  came  in  both  Shaw's  and  Symons' 
were  most  excellent,  but  Graham's  had  abiding  value, 
was  indeed  literature  and  not  journalism  at  all.  He 
merely  described  what  had  happened;  the  meeting  of  a 
dozen  famous  men  at  the  train,  the  dreary  walk  from 
the  station  to  the  cottage,  and  then  the  following  the 
coffin  to  the  grave  and  the  wordless  parting.  He  told 
how  the  few  flowers  wilted  and  cringed  in  the  bleak 
wind  and  how  eloquent  men  were  content  to  exchange 
glances  and  hand-clasps  and  part  in  silence.  Every 
sentence  seemed  to  drag  heavy  with  grief,  and  there  was 
a  sense  of  unshed  tears  and  the  unspeakable  tragedy  of 
death  in  the  very  quietude  of  the  undistinguished  ending. 

A  great  writer,  is  Cunninghame  Graham!  Three  or 
four  of  his  best  stories  will  live  with  the  best  of  Kipling. 

One  later  impression:  I  met  him  at  an  evening  party 


CUNNINGHAME  GRAHAM  55 

in  191 2,  I  think,  in  the  house  of  a  Spaniard  named 
Triano,  the  Envoy  or  Ambassador  from  some  Spanish 
South  American  State, 

I  had  not  seen  Graham  for  perhaps  fifteen  years;  he 
had  altered  indefinably.  His  'hair  was  sprinkled  with 
gray;  the  slight  figure  was  as  well  set  up  and  alert  as 
ever;  but  the  fine  coloring  had  faded  and  the  light  of 
the  eyes  was  dimmed;  he  had  grown  old,  the  spring  of 
hope  had  left  him. 

The  Spanish  setting  suited  him,  brought  out  his  dignity 
and  fine  courtesy;  he  spoke  Spanish  like  a  native  who 
was  also  a  man  of  genius,  and  our  host  took  delight  in 
praising  him  to  me  as  the  only  Briton  he  had  ever  met 
who  might  be  mistaken  for  a  Spaniard — un  hidalgo — an 
aristocrat;  he  hastened  to  add:  He's  a  great  writer,  too; 
isn't  he?' 

"Yes,"  I  replied,  a  little  hesitatingly,  and  then  the 
word  came  to  me,  the  true  word,  I  think,  "Graham's  an 
amateur  of  genius." 

"That's  it!"  cried  Triano,  delightedly.  "I  know  just 
what  you  mean.  He  does  not  take  his  work  seriously, 
doesn't  use  the  file  on  every  phrase,  seeking  perfection; 
he's  a  little  heedless  and  his  success  haphazardous,  eh? 
His  true  metier  is  that  of  a  gentleman-courtier;  he  sihould 
have  been  English  ambassador  at  the  Court  of  Madrid." 

When  I  talked  to  Graham  that  evening  I  found  him 
saddened.  The  sense  of  the  transitoriness  of  life  was 
heavy  on  him: 

"Where  are  they  all?"  he  asked;  "the  old  reviewers? 


56  CONTEMPORARY  PORTRAITS 

McCoU,  Runciman,  Max,  vShaw  and  the  rest;  do  you 
ever  see  them?" 

"From  time  to  time,"  I  replied.  "Shaw  is  married, 
you  know,  and  Max,  too;  Runciman  is  dead,  Wells  lives 
in  Essex;  and  McCoU  at  the  Tate  Gallery;  we  are  all 
more  settled  and  none  of  us  getting  younger.  .  .  ." 

"None  of  us,"  he  said,  sighing ;  "how  fast  life  streams 
past!   Are  you  as  eager  as  ever?" 

"I  think  so,"  I  answered.  "I  look  forward  as  hopefully 
as  I  did  at  sixteen;  indeed,  I  believe  I'm  more  eager, 
more  hopeful,  certainly  more  firmly  resolved  than  I  was 
as  a  young  man." 

"^"I  wish  I  could  say  as  much,'  sighed  Graham;  "life's 
worth  while,  of  course ;  but  it  hasn't  the  glamor  and  magic 
it  used  to  have,  and  the  younger  generation  aren't  very 
interesting,  are  they  ?" 

"Some  of  them  interest  me  hugely,"  I  said;  "there's 
Middleton  Murry,  with  the  Rhythm  he  edits,  and  a  young 
sculptor,  Gaudier-Brzeska,  and  Augfustus  John  and  Fer- 
guson and  Jimmy  Pryde  and  Lovat  Fraser — all  gifted,  all 
likely  to  do  big  things.  .  .  ." 

"I  don't  know  any  of  them,"  he  said ;  "where  are  they 
to  be  found  ?  How  young  you  keep !"  and  then,  "Where 
are  you  living  now  ?" 

Somehow  or  other  this  meeting  and  Graham's  sadness 
made  me  ask  a  friend  of  his  a  day  or  two  later  how  Gra- 
ham lived :  whether  he  was  hard  up  ? 

"Hard  up  ?"  exclaimed  our  friend ;  "he  has  ten  thousand 
a  year  at  least;  but  he's  a  Scot  and  thrifty;  'near,'  we 
call  it." 


CUNNINGHAME  GRAHAM  57 

The  incident  showed  me  how  little  I  knew  of  Graham ; 
how  reticent  he  was  or  proud  with  that  curious  secretive 
pride  which  is  so  Scotch  and  so  Spanish. 

Graham's  stories  are  almost  unknown  in  these  United 
States,  and  yet  I  fancy  they  would  be  popular  or  at  least 
keenly  appreciated  by  the  few  who  know  how  to  read; 
for  good  readers  are  almost  as  scarce  as  good  writers. 

Here,  for  example,  is  a  picture  taken  from  La  Pampa, 
a  story  in  a  book  entitled  "Charity,"  that  he  gave  me  in 
1912: 

"Grave  and  bearded  men  reined  in  their  horses,  their 
ponchos  suddenly  clinging  to  their  sides,  just  as  a  boat's 
sail  clings  around  the  mast  when  it  has  lost  the  wind." 

Or  take  this  portrait  of  Si  Taher,  an  Arab  mystic, 
half  fanatic,  half  madman : 

"Brown  and  hard-looking,  as  if  cut  out  of  walnut 
wood ;  with  a  beard  so  thick  it  loked  more  like  ai  setting 
than  a  beard,  though  it  was  flecked  with  grey.  .  .  His 
thin  and  muscular  body,  which  his  haik  veiled,  but  did  not 
hide,  showed  glimpses  of  his  legs  and  arms,  hairy  as  the 
limbs  of  an  orang-outang.  His  feet  were  shod  with  san- 
dals of  undressed  camel's  skin.  His  strong  and  knotted 
hands  looked  like  the  roots  of  an  old  oak,  left  bare  above 
the  ground,  both  in  their  size  and  make.  He  always 
carried  in  his  hand  a  staff  of  argan  wood,  which  use  and 
perspiration  had  polished  like  a  bone." 

Or,  in  the  same  book,  his  picture  of  his  "Aunt 
Eleanor,"  almost  unquotable,  for  every  line  of  the  ten 
pages  has  a  new  touch  that  adds  to  the  versimilitude  of 
the  portrait.    Take  these  paragraphs: 


58  CONTEMPORARY  PORTRAITS 

"Tall,  thin  and  willowy,  and  with  a  skin  like  parchment, 
which  gave  her  face,  when  worked  upon  by  a  slight  rictus 
in  the  nose  she  suffered  from,  a  look  as  of  a  horse  about 
to  kick;  she  had  an  air,  when  you  first  saw  her,  almost 
disquieting,  it  was  so  different  from  anything  or  anybody 
that  you  had  ever  met.  She  never  seemed  to  age.  .  .  . 
Perhaps  it  was  her  glossy  dark-brown  hair,  which,  parted 
in  the  middle  and  kept  in  place  by  a  thin  band  of  velvet, 
never  was  tinged  with  grey,  not  even  in  extreme  old  age, 
that  made  her  very  young. 

"Her  uniform,  for  so  I  styled  it,  it  was  so  steadfast, 
was,  in  the  winter,  a  black  silk,  sprigged,  as  she  would 
have  said  herself,  with  little  trees,  and  in  the  summer, 
on  fine  days,  a  lilac  poplin,  which  she  called  'laylock', 
surmounted  by  a  Rampore  Chudda  immaculately  white. . " 

In  the  same  quiet  way  he  tells  how  the  old  lady  loved 
horses  and  rode  to  hounds,  even  in  extreme  old  age,  and 
then  finally  of  her  death  after  she  had  made  all  arrange- 
ments for  her  funeral  and  given  all  the  necessary  orders, 
and  this  by  way  of  epitaph : 

"My  aunt  rests  quietly  under  some  elm  trees  in  Old 
Milverton  churchyard. 

"Many  old  Scottish  ladies  lie  round  about  the  grave 
where  my  aunt  sleeps  under  a  granite  slab,  now  stained  a 
little  with  the  weather,  imparting  to  the  churchyard  a 
familiar  air,  as  of  the  tea-parties  that  she  once  used  to 
give,  when  they  all  sat  together,  just  as  they  now  lie 
closely  in  the  ground,  to  keep  each  other  warm.  The 
rooks  caw  overhead,  and  when  the  hounds  pass  on  a  bright 
November  morning  I  hope  she  hears  them,  for  heaven 


CUNNINGHAME  GRAHAM  59 

would  be  to  her  but  a  dull  dwelling-place  if  it  contained 
no  horses  and  no  hounds." 

In  all  these  stories  the  painter's  eye  and  a  superb 
painter's  talent.  Graham  has  also  done  one  or  two 
sketches  of  Paris  life,  notably  "Un  Monsieur,"  which  de 
Maupassant  would  gladly  have  signed;  but  in  spite  of 
their  mastery,  his  best  work  is  found  in  pictures  of 
Spanish  South  America  or  of  Scotland,  the  land  of  his 
heart  and  home. 

Graham's  latest  collection  of  tales,  entitled  "Brought 
Forward,"  just  published  by  Stokes  &  Company,  of  New 
York,  at  one  dollar  and  thirty-five  cents,  does  not  contain 
any  of  his  best  work. 

Graham  himself  appears  to  have  felt  this,  for  he  writes 
a  "Preface"  to  this  book,  in  which  he  takes  leave  of  his 
readers  and  bids  them  forever  farewell. 

"Hold  it  not  up  to  me  for  egotism,  O  gentle  reader, 
for  I  would  have  you  know  that  hardly  any  of  the  horses 
that  I  rode  had  shoes  on  them,  and  thus  the  tracks  are 
faint.    Vale." 

Eight  or  nine  small  volumes  hold  the  entire  legacy ;  in 
half  a  dozen  short  stories  you  have  the  soul  and  quint- 
essence of  the  gallant  gentleman  who  in  life  was  Cunning- 
hame  Graham.  The  tracks  he  left  are  faint,  he  tells  you ; 
the  record  of  his  sixty  or  seventy  years  could  all  go  in 
one  little  booklet ;  but  the  final  account  is  not  to  be  made 
up  in  this  way. 

He  was  bom  to  wealth  and  place,  dowered  with  per- 
fect health  and  great  personal  charm;  tempted  as  only 
such  a  man  is,  he  might  have  been  forgiven  if  he  had 


6o  CONTEMPORARY  PORTRAITS 

chosen  the  primrose  way  and  lazied  through  life  relishing 
all  the  flowers  and  tasting  all  the  sweets.  Instead  of 
that,  he  left  his  caste  and  spoke  and  wrote  and  worked 
for  the  poor  and  the  outcast  and  the  dispossessed.  He 
braved  the  scorn  and  hatred  of  men  when  he  might  easily 
have  enjoyed  their  applause  and  honor.  He  faced  blows 
and  indignities  and  imprisonment  when  he  could  have 
reckoned  on  welcome  as  a  distinguished  guest  in  Courts 
and  Throne-rooms;  by  choice  he  took  the  martyr's  way 
and  gave  the  best  of  his  life  to  the  meanest  of  his  fellows. 

And  I  hold  Graham  the  higher  because  he  made  the 
supreme  sacrifice,  not  in  rags  and  dirt,  as  the  saints 
selected,  still  less  aiS  one  seeking  insults  and  scars,  but  as 
a  courtly  gentleman  making  light  of  his  good  deeds  and 
mocking  overwrought  pretensions,  passing  through  life 
with  a  gay  smile  and  reckless  gesture  as  if  it  were  proper 
for  a  man  to  live  for  others  and  to  die  for  them,  if  need 
be,  and  for  Justice  without  the  faintest  hope  of  reward. 

AnH  so  I  echo  my  friend's  "Farewell,"  even  though  I 
hope  to  see  him  again,  for  his  gallant  bearing  and  courage 
and  talent  formed  part  of  the  pageantry  and  splendor  of 
life  to  allof  us,  and  the  ease  of  his  accomplishment  as  an 
artist  more  than  atoned  for  the  little  carelessnesses  in 
craft  of  this  amateur  of  genius  who  was  at  the  same  time 
a  most  delightful  friend  and  absolutely  faithful  to  his 
high  caJHng.  ~^ 


Gilbert  K.  Chesterton 


GILBERT    K   CHESTERTON 

NATIONAL  ideals  are  persistent  and  recurrent. 
National  poets  stand  out  as  landmarks ;  Schiller 
in  Germany,  Victor  Hugo  in  France  correspond 
to  Milton  in  England. 

These  national  idols  find  difficulty  in  passing  the 
frontier;  Schiller  to  us  is  hardly  more  than  a  rhetorician 
in  rhyme,  and  the  poses  and  pretenses  of  Hugo,  his  innate 
theatricality,  in  fact,  robs  him  of  our  reverence,  while 
Milton's  narrow  religiosity,  his  shallowness  of  mind,  and 
his  incurable  hypocrisy  as  shown  in  his  writings  on 
divorce,  hide  from  us  the  poetic  genius  of  the  author  of 
Lycidas. 

It  is  admitted  today  that  Montaigne,  Renan,  Anatole 
France  are  typical  and  characteristic  French  writers  as 
Dr.  Johnson  is  perhaps  the  most  typical  Englishman  of 
letters. 

Every  nation  sees  the  neighboring  nation's  idol  as  a 
ridiculous  figure.  We  all  remember  how  Taine  found 
it  impossible  to  discover  any  greatness  in  Dr.  Johnson ; 
he  recognized  that  the  doctor  was  looked  up  to  by  Sir 
Joshua  Reynolds  and  by  Burke,  was  the  literary  arbiter 
of  his  time  in  London,  yet  he  can  see  little  or  no  talent  in 
him,  to  say  nothing  of  genius.  Rasselas  is  tedious,  he 
says,  almost  stupid.  Johnson's  criticisms  of  poetry  almost 
silly ;  even  his  table  talk  as  recorded  by  Boswell  is  devoid 
of  hig;h  lights.     He  was  a  mass  of  popular  prejudices, 

6i 


62  CONTEMPORARY  PORTRAITS 

believed  that  the  American  colonists  should  be  "whipped" 
into  submission,  and  that  a  woman  should  accept  the 
faithlessness  of  her  husband  meekly ;  was  as  superstitious 
as  any  old  woman,  drank  tea  to  excess  and  made  plat- 
itudes worse  than  boring  by  pomposity. 

We  all  feel  that  this  is  a  French  judgment  and  omits 
essentials;  we  think  of  Johnson's  manly  letter  to  Lord 
Chesterfield,  of  his  noble  endurance  of  poverty,  of  his 
reverence,  and  above  all  of  his  sound  masculine  under- 
standing and  hatred  of  shams  and  snobberies,  and  his 
occasional  gleams  of  real  insight ;  "the  devil,  sir,  was  the 
first  Whig.  ...  I  can  furnish  you  with  reasons,  but 
not  with  a  mind  to  understand  them"  and  so  forth. 

We  have  all  a  soft  spot  in  our  hearts  for  the  great 
doctor;  we  understand  his  whimsies  and  idiosyncrasies 
and  don't  dislike  them;  a  characteristic  Englishman,  we 
say,  with  certain  conspicuous  gifts. 

Gilbert  Keith  Chesterton  was  received  in  London  just 
as  if  he  had  been  Dr.  Johnson  come  to  life  once  more. 
Born  in  1874,  he  had  already  made  name  and  reputation 
as  a  journalist  by  the  beginning  of  the  new  century.  His 
book  on  Browning  in  1904  and  on  Dickens  in  1906  showed 
ai  certain  range  of  interest,  while  his  volumt  on  Shaw  in 

1909  gave  him  position.  But  in  my  opinion  his  two  self- 
revealing  books  are  The  Man  Who  Was  Thursday, 
which  dates  from  1908,  and  the  play.  Magic,  written  in 

1913. 
Every  journalist  and  writer  in  London  from  1900  to 

1910  knew  the  Chesterton  brothers ;  the  younger,  Cecil, 
was  a  small  replica  of  Gilbert  Keith,  and  some  four  years 


GILBERT  K  CHESTERTON  63 

younger.  He  was  a  short,  stout  man,  with  round  head 
and  round  red  cheeks,  a  contradictious  temperament  and 
an  extraordinary  belief  in  his  own  ability.  He  worked 
for  me  on  Vanity  Fair  for  some  months,  and  told  me 
many  stories  of  his  brother  and  their  early  life  together. 
They  hardly  ever  met,  it  appeared,  without  disputing,  and 
as  they  always  met  at  meal  time,  lunch  and  dinner  were 
the  scenes  of  prolonged  and  passsionate  controversy. 
The  were  both  intensely  interested  in  the  happenings  of 
the  day  and  they  argued  about  them  unceasingly. 

"What  was  the  difference  between  you  ?"  I  asked. 

"Gilbert  loved  to  play  with  words,"  was  the  reply, 
"whereas  I  took  words  to  mean  something." 

I  cannot  help  thinking  that  in  The  Man  Who  Was 
Thursday,  Gilbert  records  some  of  these  disputations : 

"He  came  of  a  family  of  cranks,  in  which  all  the 
oldest  people  had  all  the  newest  notions.  .  .  His 
father  cultivated  art  and  self-realization ;  his  mother 
went  in  for  simplicity  and  hygiene.  Hence  the  child, 
during  his  tenderer  years,  was  wholly  unacquainted 
with  any  drink  between  the  extremes  of  absinthe  and 
cocoa,  of  both  of  which  he  had  a  healthy  dislike.  The 
more  his  mother  preached  a  more  than  Puritan  ab- 
stinence, the  more  did  his  father  expand  into  a  more 
than  pagan  latitude ;  and  by  the  time  the  former  had 
come  to  enforcing  vegetarianism,  the  latter  had  pretty 
well  reached  the  point  of  defending  cannibalism," 

The  first  timj  I  met  Gilbert  Chesterton  he  made  an 
extraordinary  impression  on  me,  as  I  imagine  he  must  do 


64  CONTEMPORARY  PORTRAITS 

on  most  men.  He  is  not  only  inordinately  fat,  but  tall 
and  broad  to  boot ;  a  mountain  of  a  man.  He  must  have 
described  himself  in  The  Man  Who  Was  Thursday. 

"His  vastness  did  not  lie  only  in  the  fact  that  he 
was  abnormally  tall  and  quite  incredibly  fat.  This 
man  was  planned  enormously  in  his  original  pro- 
portions, like  a  statue  carved  deliberately  as  colossal. 
His  head,  crowned  with  white  hair,  as  seen  from  be- 
hind, looked  bigger  than  ai  head  ought  to  be.  The 
ears  that  stood  out  from  it  looked  larger  than  human 
ears.  He  was  enlarged  terribly  as  to  scale ;  and  this 
sense  of  size  was  so  staggering,  that  when  Syme 
saw  him  all  the  other  figures  seemed  quite  suddenly 
to  dwindle  and  become  dwarfish." 

I  soon  found  that  wine  and  companionship  had  the 
effect  of  endowing  him  With  an  astonishing  verbal  in- 
spiration; as  the  wine  sank  in  the  bottle  his  spirits  rose 
unnaturally  and  the  energy  of  his  language  increased  till 
his  talk  became  a  torrent  of  nonsense. 

I  have  never  met  any  one  in  my  life  who  was  such  an 
improvisatore  in  words,  who  became  intoxicated  to  the 
same  extent  with  his  own  verbal  ingenuity.  And  just  as 
the  mist  of  water  overhanging  the  thunderous  falls  of 
Niagara  is  now  and  then  pierced  by  some  shaft  of  sun- 
shine, so  the  mist  and  spray  and  thunder  of  Chesterton's 
verbal  outpouring  is  now  and  again  illumined  by  some 
shaft  of  wit.  For  instance.  The  Man  Who  Was  Thursday 
won  a  companion,  and  here  is  the  comment,  merely  verbal, 
if  you  will,  but  excellent : 


GILBERT  K  CHESTERTON  65 

"It  may  be  conceded  to  the  mathematicians  that  four  is 
twice  two.  But  two  is  not  twice  one;  two  is  two  thou- 
sand times  one.  That  is  why,  in  spite  of  a  hundred  dis- 
advantages, the  world  wilh  always  return  to  monagamy." 
(The  italics  are  mine.) 

And  that  is  why,  too,  the  martyrs  and  guides  of 
humanity  are  able  to  survive  and  do  their  high  work  in 
spite  of  the  general  hatred,  loathing  and  contempt ;  there 
is  always  some  one  person  who  understands  and  en- 
courages and  one  is  a  host  in  himself. 

A  side  of  Chesterton,  so  to  speak,  or  rather  some  sur- 
face characteristics  of  him,  are  splendidly  rendered  in  this 
book;  the  heart  of  him,  however,  is  to  be  looked  for  in 
the  noble  play,  "Magic."  I  can  praise  this  drama  whole- 
heartedly, because  I  had  again  and  again  coquetted  with 
the  idea  of  writing  a  tragedy  on  this  same  theme. 

I  never  took  up  the  matter  seriously  because  all  the 
symbols  of  the  mystery  are  so  hackneyed  and  idiotic ;  but 
Chesterton  used  the  chairs  that  move  and  the  table  that 
tilts  and  the  lights  that  burn  with  different  colors,  and 
somehow  or  other  the  incommunicable  is  suggested  to  us 
and  we  thrill  with  the  magic  of  the  ineffable ;  he  manifestly 
rejoices  in  the  fact  that  there  is  no  ultimate  horizon ; 
but  visions  from  the  verge  that  set  the  unconquerable 
spirit  of  man  flaming.  He  at  least  is  a  believer,  a  devout 
believer,  in  the  Christian  faith  and  Christian  dogma.  It 
astonished  Carlyle  that  a  man  of  Dr.  Johnson's  power  of 
mind  and  thought  in  the  middle  of  the  sceptical  eighteenth 
century  should  have  been  able  to  worship  Sunday  after 
Sunday  in  the  Church  of  St.  CJement  Danes.    But  what 


66  CONTEMPORARY  PORTRAITS 

would  he  have  said  of  Chesterton,  who,  after  the  theory 
of  evolution  has  been  accepted  and  Christianity  has  been 
studied  historically  for  half  a  century  and  is  now  univer- 
sally regarded  as  nothing  more  than  a  moment,  a  flower, 
if  you  will,  in  the  growth  of  the  spirit  of  man,  can  still 
go  on  his  knees  daily  in  adoration  and  still  believe  like  a 
child  in  a  life  to  come  and  a  Paradise  for  the  true  believer ! 
In  France,  or,  indeed,  anywhere  in  Continental  Europe 
sarve  Russia,  such  a  phenomenon  would  be  derided;  a 
man  of  latters  who  proclaimed  himself  a  sincere 
Christian  would  be  regarded  as  negligible,  an  instance  of 
arrested  development.  England,  however,  is  still  pro- 
foundly religious  and  Chesterton's  passionate  affirmations 
have  won  him  hosts  of  friends.  And  when  he  preaches 
beef  and  beer  as  well  and  asserts  that  a  man's  creed  is 
sacred  and  his  house  is  his  castle  and  Socialism  a  dream 
of  the  unwashed,  thousands  more  join  in  applauding  the 
"true  blue"  Englishman,  though  he  happens  to  be  cursed 
with  a  rare  talent  for  words  and  will  write  instead  of 
making  a  fortune  in  some  legitimate  way.  As  a  matter 
of  course  Chesterton  became  popular  in  England  as  soon 
as  he  revealed  himself;  but  general  adulation  and  per- 
sonal popularity  do  not  seem  to  haive  injured  him  in  any 
way;  the  knots  so  to  speak,  in  his  timber  cannot  be  in- 
creased in  size  or  number  and  so  he  bears  success  better 
than  most  men. 

But  what  hope  is  there  for  him  ?  Or  rather,  what  hope 
is  there  for  us  of  getting  something  better  from  him  than 
he  has  yet  given.    We  must  fetch  around,  so  to  speak. 


GILBERT  K  CHESTERTON  67 

and  look  at  him  from  another  point  of  view  before 
deciding. 

His  brother  Cecil  began  better  than  Gilbert  in  some 
respects ;  he  was  a  convinced  Socialist  even  after  he  left 
the  Fabian  Society,  started  the  ''New  Witness"  and  be- 
gan to  hairry  the  millionaire  profiteer.  At  any  rate  spiritual 
development  was  a  possibility  in  his  case,  a  probability 
even,  till  he  immersed  himself  in  the  fighting  and  died 
with  the  colors  in  Fraaice. 

Gilbert  at  once  took  over  the  conduct  of  the  weekly 
newspaper;  but  he  is  not  so  good  a  journalist  as  his 
brother,  probably  because  he  is  a  bigger  man  and  a  more 
original  mind. 

There  is  no  use  disguising  the  fact ;  there  is  a  blind  spot 
in  me;  as  a  student  I  could  not  admire  Aristophanes; 
I  could  see,  of  course,  that  he  was  magnificently  equipped 
with  a  talent  not  only  for  words  but  for  rhythmic  speech 
superior  to  any  of  the  Greek  dramatists  or  poets  except 
Sophocles  and  an  absolutely  unique  gift  to  boot  of  spiritual 
humor  and  satiric  denigration;  his  picture  of  Socrates 
swinging  about  in  the  air  (aerbaton)  and  talking  pa- 
radoxes is  delicious  und  unforgetable,  yet,  in  essentials, 
Aristophanes  was  an  ordinary  Athenian  citizen ;  he  had  no 
quarrel  with  the  popular  idols ;  the  gods  of  the  Agora 
called  out  his  reverence  and  the  religion  of  his  fathers 
was  good  enough  for  him.  He  had  none  of  the  insight, 
none  of  the  aloofness,  none  of  the  Sacred  Fire  of  the  true 
teacher.  He  knew  nothing  of  the  dreadful  isolation  and 
heart-devouring  doubts  and  misery  of  the  pioneer  and 
pathfinder  resolved  to  widen  the  horizon  and  carry  the 


68  CONTEMPORARY  PORTRAITS 

light  out  into  the  all-surrounding-  Darkness.  He  was 
never  a  spiritual  g^iide  or  leader  and  his  superb  talent  for 
speech  and  controversy  only  exasperated  me  against  him ; 
such  a  splendid  soldier  I  said  to  myself  without  a  cause, 
always  fighting  as  a  mercenary  against  the  Light  and  the 
Torchbearers. 

In  this  category  of  voices  without  high  though,  singers 
without  a  soul,  I  cannot  help  putting  Gilbert  Chesterton ; 
nothing  that  he  has  written  or  is  likely  to  write  is  cal- 
culated to  interest  me  profoundly ;  his  top-note  is  "Magic" 
which  is  hardly  more  than  a  disdainful  doubt  of  the 
prevailing  incredulity.  I  could  admire  Coventry  Patmore 
and  listen  for  hours  entranced  to  his  praise  of  the  Fathers 
of  the  Church ;  even  his  mystical  faith  in  the  ultimate 
union  of  the  soul  with  God  in  an  ecstasy  of  joy  won  my 
sympathy  and  reverence  for  it  came  from  the  depths  of 
his  spirit  and  was  indeed  the  sap  of  his  most 
sacred  song  and  psalm:  but  I  miss  this  impassioned 
fervor  in  Chesterton  and  find  him  as  I  find  Maurice  Hew- 
lett a  talent  divorced  from  life,  a  gift  unused,  wasted  in 
fact  or  worse  than  wasted.  A  sort  of  Dr.  Johnson,  not 
a  heroic  bringer  of  the  light,  as  Carlyle  phrased  it,  not 
even  a  heroic  seeker  after  it ;  but  one  contented  with  the 
wax-candles  of  the  past  and  resolved  to  maintain  that 
the  tallow  drippings  are  an  added  ornament  to  cope  or 
chasuble. 

Of  course,  this  is  unjust  and  beside  the  point.  We 
must  thank  Chesterton  for  what  he  is  and  what  he  has 
^iven,  and  not  blame  him  for  what  he  is  not.  i  have 
read  verses  of  his  on  "Christmas"  that  have  the  touch 


CxILBERT  K  CHESTERTON  69 

of  high  poetry  in  them ;  humorous  verses,  too,  that  come 
from  the  dancing  heart  of  mirth ;  even  his  journaUsm  is 
rayed  with  thought  as  in  the  instance  I  give  above  when 
he  says  that  tzvo  is  not  twice  one,  two  is  tzvo  thousand 
times  one ;  but  there  it  is,  the  blind  spot  in  me ;  the 
earnestness  of  the  fanatic  who  cannot  accept  the  terrible 
fact  that  "there's  nothing  serious  in  mortality,"  and  will 
condenm  another  by  his  own  limitations. 

Yet  I  see  and  know  that  Gilbert  Chesterton  is  a  true 
man,  an  original  thinker,  also,  a  force  therefore  of 
incalenlable  effect. 


Arthur  Symons 


ARTHUR  SYMONS 

True  love  in  this  differs  from  gold  or  clay — 
That  to  divide  is  not  to  take  away. — Shelley. 

One  day  I  was  praising  an  article'of  Symon's  when  a 
London  literary  man  of  the  previous  generation,  lifting 
his  brows,  said  disdainfully: 

"O  yes ;  Arty  can  write.  A  pity  he  has  never  anything 
to  say." 

There  was  just  enough  truth  in  the  ill-natured  jibe  to 
barb  the  shaft  and  make  it  stick  in  memory :  "What  has 
Symons  ever  said?" 

No  great  story,  no  extraordinary  book,  no  unforgetable 
lyric  to  his  credit.  Clearly  he  was  not  one  of  the  Im- 
mortals. And  yet  what  charming  things  he  had  written  ; 
what  an  astonishing  mastery  he  had  of  prose  and  poetry ; 
how  many-sided  be  was!  how  well-read,  how  sincere, 
how  sympathetic!  What  prevented  him  from  winning  a 
prize  where  even  George  Moore  gets  an  "honorable 
mention  ?" 

I  pick  up  this  new  book  of  his,  "Cities  and  Sea  Coasts 
and  Islands,"  just  published  by  Brentano,  and  find  as  a 
frontispiece  a  late  portrait  of  Symons  by  Augustus 
John.  John  is  one  of  the  most  gifted  painters  of  the 
age — a  man  with  the  seeing  eyes  of  Rembrandt.  He  does 
not  possess  the  Dutchman's  generous  rich  palette,  but  the 

71 


72  CONTEMPORARY  PORTRAITS 

is  a  better  draughtsman.  And  he  has  painted  Symons  with 
the  relentless  truth  we  all  desire  in  a  portrait ;  the  sparse 
gray  hair,  the  high,  bony  forehead,  the  sharp  ridge  of 
Roman  nose,  the  fleshless  cheeks ;  the  triangular  wedge  of 
thin  face  shock  one  like  the  stringy  turkey  neck  and  the 
dreadful,  claw-like  fingers  of  the  outstretched  hand.    A 


Arthur  Symons 

terrible  face — ravaged  like  a  battlefield;  the  eyes  dark 
pools,  mysterious,  enigmatic;  the  lid  hangs  across  the 
left  eyeball  like  a  broken  curtain. 

I  see  the  likeness  and  yet,  staring  at  this  picture,  I 
can  hardly  recall  my  friend  of  twenty-eight  years  ago. 
Symons  was  then  a  young  man  of  twenty-six  or  seven, 


ARTHUR    SYMONS  73 

some  five  feet  nine  or  so  in  height,  straight  and  slight, 
with  rosy  cheeks,  thick,  light-brown  hair  and  good,  bold 
features.  When  <he  uncovered,  the  breadth  of  forehead 
struck  one;  but  even  then  the  chief  impression  was  one 
of   health — delicate  health. 

At  our  first  meeting  he  professed  himself  an  admirer 
of  the  music  halls,  then  just  beginning  to  be  popular  in 
London;  declared  with  an  air  of  finality  tihat  dancing 
was  the  highest  of  all  the  arts,  that  it  alone  could  convey 
passionate  desire  in  every  phase  from  coquetry  to  aban- 
donment, and  that  was  the  deepest  impulse  of  the  human 
heart. 

"What  are  we?"  he  cried,  "but  seekers  after  love? 
That  is  our  quest  from  the  cradle  to  the  grave.  Love  is 
our  Divinity,  Love  our  Holy  Grail." 

He  was  a  Welsh  Celt  in  outsipokenness,  enthusiastic 
as  became  his  youth.  And  at  once  we  went  at  it  ham- 
mer and  tongs.  I  would  have  it  that  poetry — dramatic 
poetry — was  the  most  complex,  and  therefore  the  high- 
est, of  all  the  arts,  and  cast  scorn  on  ihis  acrobatics  and 
pirouetting-'women  with  overdeveloped  leg  muscles  and 
breathless  thin  smiles! 

In  the  middle  of  the  animated  discussion  I  reminded 
him  that  Plato  had  called  music  the  divinest  of  the  arts, 
and  forthwith,  to  my  astonishment,  Symons  changed 
front  in  a  jiffy  and  took  up  this  new  position. 

"True!  true!"  he  exclaimed.  "Plato  was  right; 
music  is  the  voice  of  sorrow,  and  sorrow  is  deeper  than 
joy.  Music  alone  can  render  the  sobs  and  cries  and 
wailing  of  the  world's  sadness.     Sadness  is  deeper  than 


74  CONTEMPORARY  PORTRAITS 

desire,   sorrow  more  enduring  than  joy;  death   is  the 
rule,  life  Che  exception." 

I  could  not  help  mocking  his  transcendentalism. 
"Hurrah  for  the  exception!"  And  yet  his  enthusiasm, 
his  ingenuousness,  his  love  of  sweeping  generalizations 
— his  brilliant  youth,  in  fact,  moved  me  very  pleasantly, 
attracting  me. 

Shortly  afterwards  I  received  a  critical  article  from 
him,  and  was  astonisihed  and  delighted  by  his  mastery 
of  prose.  It  was  lucid — limpid,  even — and  insinuating 
as  water,  taking  color,  too,  from  every  feeling  and 
rhythm  from  its  own  motion.  Praising  it  one  day  to  a 
friend,  I  discovered  its  shortcomings.  "It  is  French 
prose,'*  I  cried,  "not  English;  it  has  all  the  virtues,  but 
it  is  not  sober  enough:  too  agile,  quick,  following  too 
closely  the  changes,  right-about-turns  and  springs  of 
thought  itself.  We  EngHsh  have  a  stif fer  backbone  and 
want  something  more  solid,  virile,  moderate."  It  is 
only  fair  to  add  that  since  those  days  Symons'  prose  has 
shed  its  Gallic  flavor  and  inconsecutiveness,  and  is  now 
excellent  in  every  respect.  But  at  that  time  his  prose 
taught  me  that  he  must  know  French  exceedingly  well, 
for  every  sentence  could  be  turned  into  French  almost 
without  change.  The  next  time  we  met  I  remarked  on 
this  to  him,  and  he  admitted  the  accomplishment  as  if  it 
were  without  importance,  as  in  truth  it  was.  And  yet 
this  adaptability  is  Characteristic.  Strong,  original 
minds  do  not  possess  this  chameleon  faculty  of  taking 
color  from  the  surrounding  air. 

One  day  he  came  to  lunch  with  me,  and  John  Gray 


ARTHUR  SYMONS  75 

was  there.  They  began  talking  poetry.  Gray's  slim  book 
had  just  come  out  in  its  green  and  silver  cover,  and  he 
had  dedicated  a  poem  to  me.  Symons  declared  that  the 
looked  upon  me  as  a  realist,  a  writer  of  stories.  "Prose, 
prose,  is  your  medium,"  he  wound  up.  "You  hammer 
out  figures  in  bronze."  He  betrayed  his  French  procliv- 
ities at  every  ipoint.  He  wanted  to  be  epigrammatic, 
whereas  an  Anglo-Saxon  would  hesitate  to  sum  up  a 
personality  in  a  phrase.     A  verse  of  Gray's  came  up — 

The  subtle  torso's  hesitating  line 
Symons  repeated  it  again  and  again,  delighting  in  that 
"subtle"  in  it  and  t^e  undulating  rhythm,  and  in  return 
Gray  quoted  a  poem  of  Symons,  and  at  once  it  struck 
me  that  here  was  Symons'  true  field :  he  would  win  as  a 
poet  or  not  at  all.  For  there  was  something  light  about 
him,  academic — about  the  pair  of  them,  indeed.  They 
had  never  been  out  in  the  naked  struggle  of  life,  I  said 
to  myself;  cultivated  creatures  both — flowers  of  a 
garden,  hedged  off  from  the  storms  and  tempests  of  the 
world. 

Was  it  his  "Amoris  Victima' '  or  a  talk  we  had  that 
made  me  see  Symons  as  one  of  the  band  of  "very  gentle, 
perfect  lovers"  who  find  the  same  golden  gate  into  Hfe 
and  into  heaven?  As  soon  as  you  came  to  know  him 
he  made  no  bones  of  avowing  his  Celt-like  cult  of  love, 
Venus  Callipyge,  the  queen  of  his  idolatry.  His  frank- 
ness was  most  refreshing  to  one  choking  in  English  con- 
ventions. 

"Have  you  ever  read  'Casanova'  ?"  he  asked  me  one 
day  as  we  were  crossing  Grosvenor  Square,  in  a  curious, 


76  CONTEMPORARY  PORTRAITS 

challenging  way,  born,  I  guessed,  of  a  remnant  of  sihy- 
ness  with  an  older  man. 

"I  should  hope  so,"  I  replied.  "A  most  interesting 
book  and  a  great  man." 

"I'm  delighted  to  hear  you   say  that,"  he  went  on. 

"Most  Englishmen  look  at  him  askance,  and  you're  the 
first  I  ever  heard  call  him  'great.'  " 

"There  is  a  volume  of  this  'Memoirs'  always  at  my 
bedside,"  I  replied,  "and  his  meeting  with  Frederick 
the  Great  stamips  him.  They  talked  on  an  equal  footing. 
I  think  I've  learned  more  history  from  Casanova  than 
from  any  one.  His  gamblings  and  s'windlings,  love  af- 
fairs and  journeyings  paint  that  eighteentih  century  as 
no  one  else  has  painted  it.  He's  not  only  a  great  lover, 
but  a  great  adventurer.  I  profess  myself  an  ardent 
admirer  of  Signor  de  Seingalt." 

"And  I  too,"  he  cried.  "I  intend  one  of  these  days 
to  find  that  last  volume  of  his  they're  always  talking  of. 
What  a  thing  it  would  'be  to  get  out  a  really  complete 
edition  of  his  Xife'!    We  all  want  the  last  chapters." 

"Go  to  it,"  I  exclaimed.  "I  wisih  you  all  success, 
though  I  much  fear  Casanova's  end  will  be  dreadfully 
unlappy.  Those  who  live  for  the  sensuous  thrill  are  apt 
to  have  a  bad  time  of  it 'when  the  senses  decay." 

"I  don't  know  about  that,"  countered  Symons.  "Casa- 
nova had  always  lihoughts  to  console  him,  and  I  suspect 
he  was  a  good  poet  as  well  as  a  good  Latinist.  Perhaps 
I'll  find  some  of  his  verses.    What  fun!" 

"All  luck,"  I  encouraged.  "I  always  see  him  in 
Venice,  hastening  in  a  gondola  to  that  convent  on  the 


ARTHUR  SYMONS  yy 

island  where  he  met  M.,  his  bright,  brown  eyes  straining 
through  the  darkness  to  the  b'eloved." 

"His  book  ends,"  said  Symons,  "in  1774,  and  he  lived 
till  1798.  How  wonderful  it  would  be  if  I  could  find 
the  concluding  volumes!  He  told  the  truth  about  life 
more  nakedly  even  than  Rousseau." 

"All  the  world  knows  how  Symons  fhas  since  discov- 
ered the  two  missing  chapters  of  the  last  volume,  and, 
better  still,  the  letters  of  Henriette,  who  loved  Casanova 
for  over  fifty  years.  Now  we  are  counting  on  Herr 
Brockhaus'  promise  to  include  all  this  new  matter  in  a 
complete  edition,  w^hich  I  hope  to  read  one  of  these  days. 

It  was  in  1901,  I  tihink,  that  Symons  brought  out  his 
first  volume  of  poetry.  It  was  a  surprise  to  most  of 
his  friends  and  to  some  few  a  disappointment  though  the 
technical  skill  displayed  is  extraordinary. 

There  are  light  verses  of  Symons  as  perfect  as  the 
best  of  I>obson.  and  some  of  his  lyrics  will  always  be 
familiar  to  lovers  of  good  poetry.  But,  curiously 
enough,  it  is  in  his  translations  that  he  reigns  almost 
without  a  peer.  There  are  some  in  this  book  from  Santa 
Teresa  and  Campoamor  w^bich  are  as  perfect  as  can  be, 
and,  like  home  flowers  seen  in  a  foreign  land,  charm  one 
with  the  surprise  of  well-loved  beauty.  Here  are  two 
giving  the  soul  of  Santa  Teresa: 

"O  soul,  w<hat,  then,  desirest  thou? 
-^Lord,  I  would  see  thee,  who  thus  choose  thee, 
Wlhat  fears  can  yet  assail  thee  now? 
— All  that  I  fear  is  but  to  lose  thee. 


78  CONTEMPORARY  PORTRAITS 

Love's  whole  possession  I  entreat, 
Lord,  make  my  soul  thine  own  abode, 
And  I  will  build  a  nest  so  sweet 
It  may  not  be  too  poor  for  God." 

And  here  is  a  couplet  from  Campoamor  that  might 
be  used  as  a  model  by  translators : 

"Al  mover  tu  abanico  con  gracejo, 
Quitas  el  polvo  al  corazon  mas  viejo." 
"You  wave  your  fan  with  such  a  graceful  art." 
You  brush  the  dust  off  from  the  oldest  heart." 
But   I   remember  some  translations  in  a  book  pub- 
lished by  John  Lane  which  were  even  finer,  I  fancy — a 
translation  of  the  passion  of  San  Juan  de  la  Cruz  side 
by  side  wifth  a  rendering  of  Gautier's  "Coquetterie  Post- 
hume,"  as  good  as  the  original.    There  was  even  a  trans- 
lation of  Heine  which  forced  me  to  admit  that  Heine 
could  be  transferred  into  another  tongue  without  loss,  a 
miracle  I  would  never  have  believed  had  I  not  seen  it 
done  by  Symons  and  by  Thomson.    Here  are  two  verses, 
just  to  show  Symon's  astounding  mastery: 

"I  lived  alone  wiflh   my  mother 

At  Koln,  in  the  city  afar — 
The  city  where  many  hundreds 

Of  chapels  and  churches  are. 


Heal  thou  my  heart  of  its  sorrow, 
And  ever  its  song  shall  be. 

Early  and  late  unceasing: 
'Praise  Mary,  be  to  thee !" 


ARTHUR   SYMONS  79 

There  are  in  this  book,  too,  some  lyrics  of  Symons' — 
transcripts  of  slight  remote  moods  that  please  me  inti- 
mately; one  so  musical  tJhat  its  cadence  affects  me  like  a 
phrase  of  Chopin: 

"Night,  and  the  down  by  the  sea, 

And  the  veil  of  rain  on  the  down; 

And  she  came  through  the  mist  and  the  rain  to  me 

From  the  safe,  warm  lights  of  the  town." 

This  book,  too,  contains  songs  of  passion  that  give  us 
Symons'  true  measure.     Here  is  his  confession: 

"There  is  a  woman  whom  I  love  and  hate: 

There  is  no  other  woman  in  the  world : 

Not  in  her  life  s«hall  I  have  any  peace. 

There  is  a  woman  whom  I  love  and  hate : 

I  have  not  praised  her:  she  is  beautiful: 

Others  have  praised  her:  she  has  seen  my  heart: 

She  looked,  and  laughed,  and  looked,  and  went  away. 

I  don't  know  wlhy,  b'ut  this  reminds  me  in  places  of 
Swinburne's  "Leper." 

And  here  is  great  blank  verse — verse  that  Keats 
might  have  signed: 

"The  sorrowful,  who  'have  loved,  I  pity  not; 
But  those,  not  having  loved,  who  do  rejoice 
To  have  escaped  the  cruelty  of  love, 
I  pity  as  I  pity  the  unborn." 

And  here  verse  with  the  organ-tones  of  Milton: 
"And  something,  in  the  old  and  little  voice, 


8o  CONTEMPORARY  PORTRAITS 

Calls  from  so  farther  off  than  far  away, 
1  tremble,  hearing  it,  lest  it  draw  me  fortti. 
This  flickering  self,  desiring  to  be  gone 
Into  the  boundless  and  abrupt  abyss 
Whereat  begins  infinity;  and  there 
This   flickering  self  wander  eternally 
Among  the  soulless,  uncreated  winds 
Which  storm  against  the  barriers  of  the  world." 

It  reminds  me  of  Milton's  verse :  "In  the  vague  womb 
of  uncreated  Night,"  till  the  last  line,  which  is  Matthew 

I  turn  willingly  to  pure  Symons — a  love  snatch: 
Arnold: — "And    naked     shingles    of    the    world" — all 
reminiscent,  I'm  afraid;  but  lovely  nevertheless, 

"O  unforgotten!  you  will  come  to  seem. 

As  pictures  do,  remembered,  some  old  dream. 

And  I  s>hall  think  of  you  as  something  strange 

And  beautiful  and  full  of  helpless  change. 

Which  I  beheld  and  carried  in  my  heart; 

But  you,  I  loved,  will  have  tfecome  a  part 

Of  the  eternal  mystery,  and  love 

Like  a  dim  pain;  and  I  shall  bend  above 

My  little  fire,  and  shiver,  being  cold, 

When  you  are  no  more  young,  and  I  am  old." 

And  here  Symons  in  another  mood: 

"I  have  had  enougth  of  wisdom^  and  enough  of  mirth, 
For  the  way's  one  and  the  end's  one,  and  it's  soon  to  the 
ends  of  the  earth; 


^  ARTHUR   SYMONS  8i 

And  it's  then  good  night  and  to  bed,  and  if  heels  or 

heart  ache, 
Well,  it's  sound  sleep  and  long  sleep,  and  sleep  too  deep 

to  wake." 

If  this  too,  reminds  one  of  a  great  poem  of  David- 
son, still  no  one  can  deny  that  the  writer  of  these  lyrics 
has  every  right  to  call  himself  a  poet. 

And  just  as  Symons  has  reached  excellence  as  a  poet, 
without,  perhaps,  winning  place  among  the  Immortals, 
so  he  has  shown  himself  an  excellent  critic  within  simi- 
lar limits.  He  is  not  one  of  those  critics  who  have  re- 
moulded the  secular  judgments  passed  on  the  greatest. 
He  is  content  to  accetpt  the  verdicts  of  the  centuries. 
Rut  he  is  not  afraid,  in  another  book,  "Figures  of  Sev- 
eral Centuries"  (published  by  E.  P.  Dutton  &  Co.),  to 
justify  his  half-hearted  praise  of  Meredith  or  his  over- 
pitched  eulogy  of  Swinburne,  and  he  ihandles  his  smaller 
contemporaries.  Hardy,  and  Pater,  the  Gonoourts,  and 
Huysmans,  with  intimate  sympathy  and  a  fine  under- 
standing of  their  merits  and  their  defects.  In  fact,  as  a 
critic  he  can  stand  with  Hazlitt,  or  perhaps  with  Sainte 
Beuve,  though  he  is  not  so  methodical  and  satisfying 
even  as  these  minor  masters.  He  is  more  whimsical, 
more  like  Lamb,  and  like  Lamb,  too  often  gets  to  the  very 
heart  of  his  subject  through  sheer  passion  of  admiration. 

And  Symons  is  nearly  as  good  a  critic  of  painting 
and  painters,  or,  indeed,  of  music  and  musicians,  as  he 
is  of  writers.  When  he  calls  Zurbaran  "a  passionate 
mediocrity,''  I  thrill  witlh  pleasure,  and  he  has  written 


82  CONTEMPORARY  PORTRAITS 

more  intimately  and  more  convincingly  of  El  Greco 
than  any  one  else.  In  fine,  a  man,  take  him  all  in  all,  of 
very  wide  culture  and  broad  sympathies,  a  rarely  good 
judge  of  the  best  in  modern  literature,  a  writer  in  both 
prose  and  verse  of  extraordinary  accomplishment. 

For  fifteen  years  or  so  I  watched  Symons'  growth, 
almost  every  book  showing  a  distinct  advance.  One 
after  the  other  his  faults  and  mannerisms  of  style  dis- 
appeared and  his  speech  became  simpler,  more  flexible, 
dowered  witti  an  enchanting  wealth  of  musical  cadence 
and  happy  epithet. 

No  such  master  of  prose  and  poetry  has  been  seen  in 
England  since  James  Thomson,  I  said  to  myself;  surely 
one  of  these  days  he  will  write  a  dozen  lyrics  of  sur- 
passing loveliness.  In  every  respect  he  is  more  gifted 
than  Dowson.  He  is  a  lover,  too,  as  Dowson  was,  with 
Conder's  divine  sense  of  beauty;  so  I  waited,  eager  for 
the  fruiting. 

One  day  I  met  an  English  friend  in  Nice.  "Have 
you  heard  of  poor  Symons  lately?"  he  remarked  casu- 
ally.   "Is  he  getting  better,  I  wonder?" 

"What  do  you  mean  ?"  I  asked,  with  a  dreadful  sinking 
of  the  heart.    "Has  he  been  ill?" 

"Then  you  haven't  heard  ?  Oh,  it's  tragic !  He  was 
walking  with  his  wife  one  day  in  Genoa,  I  think  it  was, 
when  he  suddenly  lost  control  of  himself  and  began  to 
break  the  shop  windows,  muttering  wildly  the  while, 
'Lost!  lost!'  Lost,  indeed,  I'm  afraid;  down  and  out!" 

"Great  God!"  I  cried,  "what  a  pity!  what  a  dreadful 
loss !    What  was  the  cause  ?" 


ARTHUR   SYMONS  83 

He  shrugged  his  shoulders.  "Who  can  tell  ?  The  last 
time  I  saw  him,  a  year  or  so  ago  now,  he  had  got  very 
thin.  He  was  always  delicate,  you  know.  He  looked 
haggard,  I  thought,  worn,  played  out,  in  fact."  And 
his  eyes  met  mine. 

I  needed  no  further  explanation.  Symons  had  reached 
the  fatal  term.  About  forty  a  man's  powers  cease  ex- 
panding. He  needs  only  aibout  half  as  much  food  as  he 
formerly  consumed.  H  he  does  not  draw  in  and  form 
new  habits  he'll  soon  grow  unwieldy  fat  or  suffer  agonies 
from  indigestion,  or  both.  H  he  has  indulged  in  youth 
in  any  way  to  the  limit,  nature  now  becomes  inexorable, 
presents  her  bill  without  more  ado,  demanding  instant 
payment. 

The  ordinary  man  gets  over  the  bad  place  with  a  rough 
jolt  or  two,  but  the  artist  is  in  dreadful  danger,  and  the 
lover  is  almost  a  doomed  man.  The  Latins  called  Venus, 
Diva  Mater  Cupidinum,  and  where  desire  is  whipped  to 
frenzy  by  imagination  no  strength  can  withstand  the 
strain.  Life  to  the  artist-lover  resembles  the  river  above 
the  falls.  When  he  notices  that  he  is  in  the  rapids  it  is 
already  too  late ;  he  cannot  stop,  but  is  swept  on  faster  and 
faster  to  the  inevitable  catastrophe.  It  was  a  French  poet, 
Mery,  who  wrote:  "Les  femmes  out  tue  beaucoup  d'ar- 
tistes,  mats  ks  artistes  n'ont  jamais  tue  des  femmes." 

After  going  over  Niagara,  Symons  struggled  slowly 
back  again  to  life.  The  terrible  experience  is  written  in 
his  haggard  mask,  in  the  straggling  gray  hairs  and  the 
withdrawn  eyes :  The  heart  knowcth  its  own  bitterness. 


84  CONTEMPORARY  PORTRAITS 

As  soon  as  I  heard  that  Symons  was  again  in  com- 
parative health  I  could  not  help  wondering  about  his 
work.  Like  the  brave  soul  he  is,  he  has  taken  the  burden 
of  it  up  again  ;  but  I  am  afraid  that  the  fall  was  disastrous.' 
He  has  been  in  what  I  have  called  when  writing  of  de 
Maupassant,  "the  most  dreadful  torture-chamber  in  life." 
And  I  greatly  fear  that  no  one  who  has  ever  passed 
more  than  an  hour  there  will  be  able  to  do  his  best  work 
afterwards. 

The  experience  is  soul-shattering. 

As  the  artist's  reward  is  the  highest  and  most  desir- 
able in  the  world,  it  is,  perhaps,  only  fair  that  his  life's 
pilgrimage  should  be  the  most  dangerous.  But  few 
understand  how  desperate  is  his  adventure.  Not  only 
must  the  artist  feel  more  acutely  than  other  men,  but  he 
must  abandon  himself,  with  every  fibre  in  him,  to  his 
sensajtions  and  emotions,  for  he  is  expected  to  surpass 
all  previous  masters  in  magical  expression  of  his  feel- 
ings. And  if  he  thereby  endangers  health  or  sanity,  who 
cares?  The  product  is  all  men  ask  for.  "Paint  us  the 
heights  and  depths  of  passion  as  no  one  else  has  ever 
done,"  is  the  inexorable  mandate. 

And  his  competitors  are  not  merely  the  men  of  his  own 
day,  but  the  greatest  of  all  time  in  a  dozen  tongues. 

And  then  the  critic  cavils  and  compares,  awarding  three 
laurel  leaves  here  and  five  there,  and  another  fool 
wonders  malevolently  why  the  artist  doesn't  pay  his 
debts,  never  weighing  in  the  balance  the  incommensurable 
debt  that  the  world  owes  the  artist  and  will  never  even 
acknowledge,  much  less  pay.    For  without  the  artist  the 


ARTHUR  SYMONS  85 

vast  majority  of  men  would  have  no  eyes  for  beauty  and 
scant  sympathy  for  suffering.  Their  very  souls  are  made 
for  them  by  the  artists  whom  they  despise  and  maltreat. 
But  in  face  of  this  suffering  and.  this  torture  of 
Symons,  I  want  to  admit  my  debt  and  tell  its  importance, 
I  have  enjoyed  golden  hours  of  companionship  with  him 
and  when  "farther  off  than  far  away,"  to  use  his  own 
phrase,  with  his  books,  his  moods  and  lovesongs.  There 
are  lines  of  his,  I  say,  that  might  have  been  written  by 
Sophocles;  there  are  some  that  first  came  from  Milton; 
others  that  remind  me  of  "the  greatest  of  all  the 
humorists,"  as  Heine  called  himself,  and  there  are  some 
of  Symons'  own  worthy  to  be  remembered  even  among 
these.  Here  with  the  shadows  gathering  round  me,  I  say 
Ave  atqu^  vale! 

******* 


The  Right  Hon.  Winston  Churchill 


WINSTON  CHURCHILL 

MR.  WINSTON  CHURCHILL'S  life  has  been 
a  succession  of  adventures :  probably  no  one 
living,  certainly  no  living  statesman  of  forty 
years  of  age,  has  seen  more  of  war  or  of  life  in  its  tense, 
dramatic  moments. 

As  head  of  the  Britis'h  Admiralty  he  was  the  first 
Cabinet  Minister  after  the  war  started  to  be  driven 
from  his  position  b'y  a  storm  of  criticism  and  contempt; 
but  while  other  fallen  Ministers  remained  in  the  limbo 
of  forgotten  worthies  he  alone  returned  to  honor  and 
place  as  Minister  of  Munitions  and  then  of  War.  This 
singular  good  fortune  deserves  closer  study. 

I  had  read  about  him  in  the  newspapers  of  the  day 
many  times  before  meeting  him.  When  merely  a  youth 
he  kept  himself  in  the  limelight,  it  was  said;  but  then 
the  limelight  in  England  turned  naturally  on  the  eldest 
son  of  Lord  Randolph  Churchill,  who  had  given  proof 
that  the  genius  of  the  first  and  great  Duke  of  Marlbor- 
ough was  only  dormant.  Winston  passed  from  Harrow 
directly  into  the  army.  At  school  he  had  cut  no  par- 
ticular figure;  was,  indeed,  a  very  mediocre  scholar, 
knowing  even  now  no  French,  for  instance,  though  he 
had  three  hours  a  week  teadhing  in  it  for  seven  years. 

When  hardly  of  age  he  showed  an  uncommon  thirst 
for  adventure  by  going  off  to  fight  for  the  Spaniards 
in  Cuba ;  a  couple  of  years  later  he  served  on  the  North 

87 


88  CONTEMPORARY  PORTRAITS 

West  Frontier  of  India.  Evidently  he  was  as  hungry 
for  adventure  as  'he  was  careless  of  learning.  A  year 
or  so  later,  he  went  up  the  Nile  with  Kitchener,  was 
present  at  the  battle  of  Khartum  and  won  unique  distinc- 
tion by  condemning  his  General  publicly  for  desecrat- 
ing the  grave  of  the  Mahdi.  His  book,  "The  River 
War,"  which  had  a  large  sale,  showed  that  he  could  judge 
men  and  events  with  a  certain  impartiality  as  from  a 
height.  We  were  still  reading  this  book  on  the  Nile 
ex[>edition  when  he  stood  for  Parliament  and  the  very 
next  year  he  was  in  South  Africa  as  war  correspondent 
for  The  Morning  Post — evidently  a  bold,  active,  venture- 
some spirit. 

During  the  war  with  the  Boers,  only  two  correspon- 
dents came  to  honor  in  spite  of  the  rigorous  censorship, 
which  made  everything  b'ut  eulogy  impossible — A.  G. 
Hales,  the  Australian,  and  Winston  Churchill,  I  shall 
never  forget  the  stir  made  by  one  article  in  whi{?h'  Win- 
ston declared  that  one  Boer  was  worth  five  or  six  Brit- 
ish soldiers  in  the  field.  Like  some  of  us  who  had  al- 
ready made  similar  statements  in  the  London  press, 
Winston  was  at  once  condemned  as  an  American  or 
worse  (his  mother  was  Miss  Jenny  Jerome,  of  New 
York).  Telling  the  truth  practically  ruined  Hales;  and 
if  Winston  Churchill  survived  and  won  through,  it  was 
because  he  was  a  member  of  the  British  governing  class 
by  birth  and  manifestly  difficult  to  suppress. 

Winston  was  captured  by  the  Boers,  managed  to 
escape  and  returned  from  South  Africa  to  contest  Old- 
ham again.    This  time  he  got  into  Parliament  and  soon 


WINSTON  CHURCHILL  89 

began  to  make  a  new  reputation.  He  spoke  frequently 
and  on  many  subjects  without  creating  much  impression; 
but  he  managed  to  avoid  boring  the  House  by  pointing 
his  'poHtical  platitudes  now  and  then  with  acid  criticism 
of  his  Conservative  leaders.  Mr.  Ernest  Beckett,  af- 
terwards Lord  Grimthorpe,  adopted  the  same  tactics  and 
the  pair  soon  came  to  be  looked  on  with  disfavor  by 
their  chiefs.  One  evening  Beckett  told  me  the  Conserva- 
tive Whips  had  let  it  be  known  that  none  of  the  mal- 
contents would  ever  be  honored  with  official  position. 
Mr.  Balfour,  it  appeared,  insisted  on  servility  and  strict- 
est party  discipline. 

Finding  the  way  up  blocked  against  him,  Winston 
took  the  decisive  step :  he  left  the  Conservative  Party  in 
1906  on  the  question  of  Free-Trade,  stood  for  a  division 
of  Manchester  as  a  Liberal,  and  was  returned. 

In  the  same  year  Winston  Churchill  publis'hed  a  bulky 
life  of  his  father.  Lord  Randolph  Churchill,  in  two  vol- 
umes, which  was  the  occasion  of  our  closer  acquaint- 
ance. 

Ernest  Beckett  had  been  a  most  intimate  friend  of 
Lord  Randolph  Churchill.  Indeed,  wthen  Lord  Ran- 
dolph died,  it  was  found  that  he  had  made  Ernest 
Beckett  one  of  his  literary  executors,  the  other  being 
Lord  Curzon  (not  him  of  Kedleston).  It  was  under- 
stood that  they  were  to  arrange  for  the  publication  of  a 
biography  of  the  deceased  statesman.  Naturally  enough, 
when  they  knew  Winston  wanted  to  write  the  life  of  his 
father,  they  gave  it  to  him  to  do  and  handed  over  to 


90  CONTEMPORARY  PORTRAITS 

him  aH  Lord  Randolph's  official  documents  and  private 
papers. 

Hearing  of  me  through  Beckett,  Winston  wanted  to 
know  me  and  Beckett  brought  about  a  meeting,  at  lunch 
in  his  flat  off  Piccadilly.  At  this  time  Winston 
Churchill  couldn't  have  been  more  than  thirty-two,  yet 
his  hair  was  already  thinning  and  his  figure  showed  signs 
of  a  threatening  landslip.  To  my  astonishment  he  was 
exceedingly  fair  (his  mother  being  very  dark),  rufus- 
fair,  indeed,  with  whitest  skin  and  the  round  blue  eyes 
and  bulging  reflective  forehead  of  his  father.  He  was 
about  five  feet  ten  in  height,  but  muc'h  stooped.  He 
spoke  with  a  peculiar  lisp,  which  he  afterwards  mitigated 
by  lessons  in  elocution  and  prodigious  practice.  He  had 
an  abrupt  directness  of  manner  and  took  the  lead  in  all 
talk  as  a  matter  of  course.  His  name  and  life  had  evi- 
dently given  him  inordinate  self-confidence.  He  knew 
me,  it  appeared,  chiefly  through  the  article  I  had  written 
in  the  Saturday  Review  on  the  occasion  of  his  father's 
death.  He  was  kind  enough  to  call  it  "the  best  article 
which  had  appeared  anywhere" ;  and  added  that  the 
Duchess  of  Marlborough,  Randolph's  mother,  always 
showed  it  about  as  establishing  her  estimate  of  her  fa- 
vorite son's  genius. 

Our  talk  turned,  I  remember,  on  the  Boer  war:  we 
agreed  on  a  good  many  points.  Whatever  he  had  learned 
by  himself  was  trustworthy;  outside  of  that  he  had  the 
ordinary  English  prejudices.  He  believed  that  the  Boers, 
as  Rhodes  said,  had  been  intriguing  to  get  German  as- 
sistance because  in  Kruger's  place  he  would  have  played 


WINSTON  CHURCHILL  91 

German  against  Englishman.  When  I  declared  that  the 
Boers  only  wanted  to  be  'let  alone  and  disliked  the  Ger- 
mans even  more  than  the  British  and  were  too  conceited 
to  seek  help  from  anyone,  he  brus'hed  it  all  aside: 

"That  would  merely  prove  their  stupidity.  Of  course, 
they  tried  to  get  whatever  help  they  could." 

Kruger's  trust  in  God,  his  belief  that  'standing  simply 
for  the  right,  he  would  not  be  deserted  in  the  hour  of 
need,  seemed  to  him  ridiculous,  incredible. 

"Kruger,  too,  was  out  for  money ;  all  he  could  get,  if 
half  I  hear  is  true." 

No  argument,  no  fact  even  on  the  other  side,  could 
find  acceptance  or  even  consideration :  his  mind  was  not 
flexible,  his  sympathies  were  narrow;  his  prejudices  in- 
vincible. 

When  we  changed  the  subject  he  spoke  of  his  "Life" 
of  his  father.  He  wanted  to  know  whether  I'd  look 
through  the  proofs  of  his  book  and  make  suggestions.  In 
a  weak  moment  I  consented,  fancying  that  his  acknow- 
ledgment would  do  me  some  good.  In  the  course  of  the 
next  four  months  I  discovered  a  thousand  new  reasons 
for  believing  that  no  son  can  possibly  write  a  life  of  his 
father.  Even  if  he  is  detached  enough  to  see  the  truth, 
he  dare  not  write  it,  if  it  is  unpleasant  or  derogatory. 
Men  live  in  conventions,  and,  according  to  the  English 
canon  of  today,  a  son  must  see  few,  if  any,  serious  short- 
comings in  his  father  or  he  will  be  regarded  as  unnatural, 
— worse  than  a  traitor,  indeed.  And  Winston  had  no  ar- 
tistic ideal  driving  him  to  faithful  portraiture. 

I  was  a  little  surprised  to  find  that  he  saw  all  his 


92  CONTEMPORARY  PORTRAITS 

father's  faults  with  microscopic  enlargement.  Randolph 
Churchill  had  always  had  an  irritable,  imperious  temper 
backed  by  prodigious  conceit.  After  his  downfall  these 
faults  were  poisoned,  so  to  speak,  by  an  extravagant 
bitterness. 

"You  didn't  like  him  ?"  I  asked  Winston. 

"How  could  I?"  was  the  reply.  "I  w^s  ready  enough 
to,  as  a  boy,  but  !he  wouldn't  let  me.  He  treated  m<e  as 
if  I  had  been  a  fool ;  barked  at  me  whenever  I  questioned 
him.  I  owe  everything  to  my  mother,  to  my  father 
nothing." 

"Did  you  never  talk  politics  with  him?" 

"I  tried,  but  he  only  looked  contempt  at  me  and  would 
not  answer.'^ 

"But  didn't  he  see  you  had  something  in  you?"  I  per- 
sisted. 

"He  thought  of  no  one  but  himself,"  was  the  reply; 
"no  one  else  seemed  to  him  worth  thinking  about  and  as 
his  health  grew  worse,  his  selfobsession  became  maniacal. 
Towards  the  end  it  was  pitiful:  he  suffered  dreadfully." 

There  was  evidently  no  filial  piety  in  this  son  to  cloud 
clearness  of  vision. 

I  soon  found  that  Winston  was  prudent,  too,  and  sel- 
dom acted  from  impulse.  Before  every  important  decision 
he  tried  to  calculate  all  tJhe  forces  and  establish  the  re- 
sultant. He  had  a  curiously  exact  sense  of  his  own  posi- 
tion. As  soon  as  he  became  a  Liberal  he  spared  no  pains 
to  get  immediately  re-elected : 

"If  I  don't  get  in  at  once,  the  Liberals  may  drop  me," 


WINSTON  CHURCHILL  93 

was  his  fear.  "They're  under  no  obligation  to  find  a  seat 
for  me.    It's  at  the  beginning  I  may  fail." 

"Your  name  would  always  save  you!"  I  interjected. 

"It's  not  enough.    I  don't  mean  to  give  'em  the  chance." 

After  his  election  the  next  question  was  canvassed 
even  more  eagerly,  more  closely: 

"Will  Asquith  give  me  office  ?" 

After  his  first  speech  in  the  House  as  a  Liberal : 

"Did  I  do  well  ?  Asquith  hasn't  sent  for  me  ?  I  think 
he  will.    Don't  you?    What  do  the  journalists  say?'' 

Plow  well  I  remember  the  interminable  talks,  I  saw 
him  nearly  every  day,  and  each  morning  he  would  meet 
me  with : 

"Nothing,  nothing,  yet;  still  I  have  hopes.  So-and-so 
told  me  last  night  that  Asquith  always  took  his  time"; 
and  so  on  to:    "Shall  I  get  office?" 

Or  his  thoughts  would  take  another  turn: 

"Suppose  he  asks  me  what  post  I  should  like ;  what 
am  I  to  say?  Of  course,  I'd  like  to  be  Financial 
Secretary  of  the  Treasury;  thait's  the  highest  place  he 
could  offer  me,  I  think ;  but  I  couldn't  well  ask  for  that. 
It  wouldn't  look  well.  I'd  hate  a  minor  post  on  the  Board 
of  Trade  or  somewhere." 

"But  you  could  refuse  it,"  I  rejoined. 

"No,  no,"  he  said  quickly ;  "it  wouldn't  look  well ;  miglit 
put  his  back  up  against  me  and  I  can't  afford  to  do  that; 
can't  afford  it.     I  wish  I  could." 

"Why  can't  you?"  I  asked  again  in  my  ignorance,  and 
got  the  answer. 

"If  I  once  get  office  I've  won.    Don't  you  understand? 


94  CONTEMPORARY  PORTRAITS 

I'm  not  rich;  can't  afford  to  figihit  two  or  three  contested 
elections;  might  drop  out  altogether;  but  once  in  office, 
once  a  Minister  and  your  Party  is  bound  to  find  a  seat  for 
you.  You  needn't  bother  any  more.  The  lists  are  al- 
ways open  to  you  and  if  you  can  fig^t,  ultimately  you'll 
find  your  place  and  your  reward." 

"Oh,  I  see,"  I  replied;  "of  course  then  you'll  take 
whatever  is  offered  you?" 

"That's  what  makes  me  so  anxious,"  he  replied  reflec- 
tively. "I  must  take  wthat's  offered;  I  can't  bargain; 
I  daren't. 

One  morning  I  found  him  grave  but  triumphant ;  a  sort 
of  formal  solemnity  about  his  manner. 

"Mr.  Asquith  sent  for  me,"  he  said.  "It's  all  settled. 
I'm  to  ihave  the  Colonies.  Under  Secretary  of  State  for 
the  Colonies."     He  mouthed  the  words. 

"At  last,"  he  beamed;  "no  more  doubt  and  fighting; 
no  more  waiting  and  longing ;  Ministerial  rank ;  that  can 
never  be  taken  away.  No  place  I  sihall  ever  get  will  be 
such  a  step  for  me  as  this — none;  not  even  the  Premier- 
ship: Asquith  was  very  kind;  he  has  really  great  qual- 
ities." 

Not  a  word  about  his  own  fitness ;  nothing  about  duty 
or  the  work  to  do.  Clearly  he  was  meant  to  be  a  British 
Minister. 

"The  colonies  should  give  you  a  chance,"  I  said,  "for 
you  ihave  visited  a  good  many  of  them  and  can  get  in 
touch  with  fhe  real  feeling  of  those  you  are  supposed  to 
represent." 

"Get  in  touch  with  nothing,"  he  cried ;  "with  my  Chief 


WINSTON  CHURCHILL  95 

and  with  Asqtiith.  Show  him  and  the  other  Ministers 
that  I  must  be  reckoned  with ;  the  ring  is  there ;  now  for 
the  fight!" 

An  arriviste,  a  climber,  but  not  a  man  of  genius,  for 
the  great  man  is  always  thinking  of  the  work  and  how 
it  s^hould  be  done,  and  not  chiefly  of  the  reward. 

All  this  was  natural  enough  but  backed,  as  I  have 
sihown  in  the  little  discussion  about  the  Boers,  by  a  fixed 
belief  that  every  one  is  driven  by  self-interest  and  by 
self-interest  alone  and  that  any  other  motive  of  human 
action  is  negligible. 

And  the  chief  interest  to  him  at  first  was  money,  he 
was  always  more  than  half  American.  I  sold  his  "Life 
of  Lord  Randolph  Churchill"  to  Macmillans  for  just 
double  the  amount  he  'had  hoped  to  get,  $40,000.  W'hen 
I  told  him  the  offer  had  been  made  and  I  had  accepted 
it,  conditionally,  he  triumphed. 

"That'll  make  me  independent;  you've  no  idea  what  it 
means  to  me;  it  guarantees  success;  I'm  extremely 
obliged  to  you." 

And  some  time  laAer,  talking  of  my  idea  of  selling 
Vanity  Fair,  he  was  urgent  in  the  same  worldly-wise 
spirit. 

"Get  enough  to  live  on,  without  asking  anybody  for 
anything :  that's  the  first  condition  of  success,  or  indeed, 
of  decent  living;  that's  the  prime  necessity  of  life.  Every 
man  of  us  should  think  of  nothing  but  that  till  it's 
achieved.  Afterwards  one  can  do  w*hat  one  likes — please 
keep  that  in  front  of  you  as  the  object  of  your  life!" 


96  CONTEMPORARY  PORTRAITS 

His  earnestness  spoke  of  intense  anxieties  in  the  past 
and  was  impressive. 

Winston  had  no  other  god  or  goal  but  success,  and  the 
only  success  he  understood  was  the  success  of  wealth  and 
power  and  honor — success  in  the  day  and  hour.  His 
ambition  was  so  intense,  his  vision  of  what  he  wanted  so 
clear,  the  urge  in  him  so  powerful,  that  I  would  have 
forgiven  him  had  he  married  for  wealth  and  position  or 
at  least  with  an  eye  to  those  advantages.  It  is  the  more 
to  his  honor  that  he  married  emphatically  for  love,  a 
daughter  of  Lady  Blanche  Hozier,  a  girl  of  extraordinary 
beauty  and  charming  manners ;  but  with  no  money  and 
no  prospects.  The  Churchills  have  since  had  a  son  and 
daughter,  and  whoever  'has  seen  Winston  playing  with 
his  baby  on  the  floor  in  his  drawing-room  will  under- 
stand that  his  home-life  is  a  perfect  oasis  in  the  desert 
of  strife  and  labor.  His  pride  in  the  radiant  beauty  of 
his  wife  is  good  to  see.  She  is  tall,  dark  as  he  is  fair> 
and  carries  herself  superbly. 

In  the  year  of  his  marriage,  1908,  Winston  was  made 
President  of  the  Board  of  Trade,  which  office  he  held 
till  1910;  then  he  became  Home  Secretary,  and  after- 
wards, to  the  astonishment  of  every  one,  First  Lord  of 
the  Admiralty.  I  say  to  the  "astonis'hment  of  every  one," 
for  the  Home  Secretary  is  a  far  higher  and  more  influ- 
ential position  than  First  Lord,  as  it  is  certainly  better 
paid;  but  Winston  Churchill  didn't  hesitate  to  take  the 
lower  but  more  responsible  post ;  for  he  felt  that  the  war 
was  coming.  The  event  shows  that  he  had  divined 
rightly ;  he  had  'placed  himself  in  the  center  of  the  stage, 


WINSTON  CHURCHILL  97 

not  dreaming  that  the  full  limelight  would  reveal  his 
short-com.ings  as  sharply  as  his  qualities.  Unluckily  for 
him  his  blunders  were  appalling :  a  few  thousand  marines 
sent  to  Antwerp  to  hold  up  250,000  Germans,  and  the 
fiasco  of  forcing  the  Dardanelles  which,  however,  was  a 
military  and  tactical  but  not  a  strategical  mistake. 
Winston  resigned  his  post  and  went  to  the  trenches  to 
fight  as  a  subaltern. 

I  'have  now  shown,  I  think,  pretty  fairly  the  notable 
balance  which  Winston  Churchill  keeps  between  senti- 
ment and  self-interest.  Where  feeling  should  be  supreme, 
as  in  marriage,  he  has  shown  himself  superior  to  sordid 
impulses ;  he  is  not  only  abler  than  the  ordinary  man,  'he 
is  better,  kinder  perha/ps  in  equal  measure.  It  now 
remains  for  me  to  frame  the  portrait,  so  to  speak,  by 
indicating  his  limitations,  which  may,  howlever,  in  turn 
become  qualities  or  even  virtues  in  his  present  position. 

The  desire  to  grow,  apart  from  success  or  even  away 
from  it,  always  appeared  to  Winston  Churchill  as  fan- 
tastic or  disgracefully  affected. 

"Wihat  good  is  it  to  b'e  wiser  than  your  fellow  men  if 
they  don't  or  won't  see  it?  What  good  did  it  do  you  to 
foretell  the  outcome  of  the  South  African  War  when  no 
one  would  listen  to  you  or  give  you  credit  for  it?" 

The  artist's  striving  to  reveal  beauty  or  to  throw  a  veil 
of  loveliness  over  w*hat  is  ugly,  or  to  lift  the  common 
thing  to  significance,  left  him  coldly  indifferent. 

"I  wouldn't  waste  an  hour  on  making  a  book  of  mine 
better,"  he  would  say,  "if  the  extra  work  would  probably 


98  CONTEMPORARY  PORTRAITS 

pass  unnoticed  or  unappreciated :  wh^t  would  be  the  good 
of  it?" 

And  the  prophet-im«pulse,  whether  of  Cassandra- 
warning  or  of  John  the  Baptist  triump^hing,  appeared  to 
him  to  belong  to  a  semi-barbarous  or  even  mythical  past. 
He  had  scant  and  merely  mouth  reverence  for  writers 
like  Goethe,  Schopenhauer  and  Meredith,  who  set  the 
course  for  humanity,  and  he  preferred  to  be  captain 
rather  than  himself  steer  the  ship.  Ideal  aims  without 
reward  or  visible  results  are  beyond  his  admiration. 

But  while  this  short-sightedness  prevents  'him  from 
being  a  great  man,  it  will  help  him  to  success.  It  is 
necessary  to  aim  high  in  order  to  go  far,  but  he  who 
shoots  straight  upwards  may  be  injured  by  the  falling  of 
his  own  arrow,    ' 

Winston  Churchill  is  likely,  I'm  afraid,  to  aim  too  low 
rather  than  too  high.  His  contemptuous  jeer  at  the 
German  fleet,  "We  shall  draw  them  like  rats  from  their 
hole,"  was  neither  wise  nor  in  good  taste,  was,  indeed, 
a  measure  of  ignorant  conceit;  but  like  Lord  Curzon's 
dreadful  verses,  the  gibe  must  be  taken  to  be  popular 
with  the  oligarchy  and  to  be,  therefore,  a  part  of  his  bid 
for  leadership.  But  Churchill  does  not  need  to  please 
the  aristocratic  class;  he  belongs  to  it;  his  weakness  is 
that  he  does  not  appeal  to  the  masses  so  successfully  as 
Lloyd  George,  for  instance,  and  the  working-class  in 
England  would  rather  hear  of  an  advance  in  the  pay  of 
soldiers  and  sailors  or  an  increase  of  pension  and  allow- 
ances to  the  widows  and  orphans  than  any  insult  to 
the  foe. 


WINSTON  CHURCHILL  99 

Winston  Churchijl  is  not  democratic  enough  to  be 
popular.  He  hates  socialism  without  ever  having  studied 
it,  and  if  one  proved  to  him  that  in  a  perfect  state  it 
must  have  its  place  just  as  clearly  defined  as  Individual- 
ism, indeed  that  happiness  results  from  an  equipoise 
between  these  two  opposing  forces,  he  might  assent,  but 
it  would  be  a  reluctant,  grudging  admission. 

I  shall  never  have  done  if  I  go  on  counting  up  his 
^intellectual  shortcomings.  He  knows  no  foreign  language ; 
cannot  even  speak  French;  has  no  idea  what  Germany 
and  her  schools  stand  for  in  the  modern  world.  He  has 
read  scarcely  at  all,  and,  outside  a  smattering  of  history, 
is  astoundingly  ignorant  of  the  best  that  has  been  thought 
and  said  in  the  world.  However,  he  knows  something 
about  the  British  Colonies  and  India  from  having  seen 
them  and  in  so  far  can  crow  over  most  of  his  colleagues 
in  the  Cabinet. 

But  he  reveals  himself  even  more  clearly  in  his  admira- 
tions. He  loves  Gibbon  and  Macaulay  and  believes  that 
the  stilted,  antithetical,  pompous  English  which  they  af- 
fected is  a  model  of  good  taste.  He  has  no  inkling  of 
the  fact  that  simplicity  is  the  hall-mark  of  greatness  in 
manners  as  in  style.  He  loves  lordly  rooms  as  he  loves 
sounding  and  ornate  words.  The  only  <phrase  he  has 
invented  as  yet,  betrays  his  taste:  he  spoke  once  of  a 
false'hood  as  a  "terminological  inexactitude"  and  the 
"mot"  had  an  astonishing  success.  Finally,  Winston 
Churchill  has  all  an  Englishman's  disdain  for  everything 
that  does  not  harmonize  with  his  ideal;  he  has  no  sus- 


loo  CONTEMPORARY  PORTRAITS 

picion  that  there  are  heights  above  him  as  mighty  as  the 
depths  beneath. 

Within  his  Hmits,  however,  he  is  an  excellent  servant 
of  the  State.  He  is  hard-working  to  a  fault  and  brave 
to  indiscretion.  He  was  the  first  Minister  to  make 
ascents  in  airplanes,  and  as  soon  as  hydroplanes  were 
invented  he  persisted  in  going  up  day  after  day,  in  spite 
of  reasonable  remonstrance.  Once  his  pilot  was  killed 
in  an  ascent  a  few  hours  after  he  had  taken  Winston  for 
a  flight;  but  the  mishap  had  no  effect  on  the  steeled 
nerves  of  the  Minister.  He  went  up  again  next  day  with 
another  airman  as  if  nothing  had  happened.  Again  and 
again  'he  has  been  under  the  sea  in  submarines;  indeed, 
if  personal  courage  be  a  high  virtue  in  a  statesman, 
Winston  Churchill  is  rarely  equipped. 

But  what  a  pity  it  is  that  he  did  not  adopt  submarines 
more  quickly  and  develop  both  them  and  airships  more 
boldly.  Years  ago  he  was  challenged  in  the  press  to  spend 
millions  on  submarines  and  airplanes,  but  he  didn't  think 
the  suggestion  worth  considering.  I  got  the  late  Admiral 
Sir  Percy  Scott  to  advocate  in  191 2  a  large  expenditure 
on  the  new  weapons,  and  Scott  was  one  of  the  few 
British  naval  chiefs  who  had  both  knowledge  and  imagin- 
tion;  but  the  British  government  preferred  to  let  the 
French  and  Germans  experiment  with  the  new  in- 
struments. 

As  an  administrator  Winston  Churchill  has  been 
cautious  to  excess  and  followed  his  chief  war-adviser, 
Admiral  Lord  Fisher,  very  closely.  The  pair  did  not 
blun<ler  to  success  this  time,  as  British  leaders  of  no 


WINSTON  CHURCHILL  loi 

higher  mental  calibre  have  often  blundered  before.  This 
war  may  possibly  'have  taught  Englishmen  that  the  time 
for  "bungling  through"  is  over  and  past.  How  bitterly 
Winston  Churchill,  if  he  has  sufficient  imagination,  must 
have  regretted  the  wasted  \ears  and  unused  millions  that 
might  have  made  English  submarines  and  airplanes  and 
hydroplanes  the  best  in  the  world.  There  is  a  Nemesis 
attending  place  and  power  and  wealth  unwisely  used. 

I  have  tried  to  give  a  realistic  portrait,  so  to  speak,  of       L)     i  (X/wJ 
Winston  Churchill,  and  it  appears  from  it  that  no  great!  n  Jt*^  A 
or  original  stroke  of  genius  need  be  expected  from  him'  ^ 

in  any  place.  Since  he  first  won  office  and  the  con-' 
sequent  pension  when  out  of  office,  that  is,  absolute  free- 
dom from  material  cares,  he  has  grown  stout  and  only 
keeps  'himself  within  comparatively  decent  outlines  by 
strenuous  polo.  He  reads  only  to  prepare  his  speeches 
and  has  no  other  artistic  tastes.  But,  on  the  other  hand, 
he  is  easy  of  approach  and  his  heart  is  in  his  work;  he 
listens  to  everyone,  even  though  he  cannot  grasp  all  that 
is  said  to  him ;  in  fine,  he  is  an  excellent  subaltern:  cap-         > 


able,  industrious  and  supremely  courageous,  but  notgL— -v**-,^.  f. 


pathfinder  or  great  leader  of  men.     \^ -.- '     fi^Jjk^  ^^  ir-'i 

England  has  always  despised  genius  and  stoned  the  (*V'^ 
prophets ;  in  her  estremity,  she  had  only  the  capable  « 
mediocrities,  whom  she  still  delights  to  honor.  She  had 
dozens  of  Curzons,  McKennas  and  Cecils,  any  number  of 
Beres fords  and  Haigs,  but  no  Fulton,  no  Napoleon,  no 
Paul  Jones,  no  one  to  play  indicating  figure  and  so  give 
value  to  her  millions  of  recruits  ;  no  one  to  imagine,  much 
less  to  accomplish,  the  impossible  for  her  sake,  and,  for 


102  CONTEMPORARY  PORTRAITS 

love  of  her,  tear  victory  from  the  empty  sky  and  the 
unsounded  sea.  Yet  thanks  to  America,  she  is  again 
victorious  and  her  first  use  of  victory  has  been  to  deny 
freedom  to  Ireland  and  to  drown  in  blood  the  aspirations 
of  India  and  Egypt  to  self  government  and  national  life. 


Alfred  Russel  Wallace 


RUSSEL  WALLACE 

THOUGH  I  knew  he  was  one  of  the  Immortals, 
Wallace  did  not  impress  me  at  first  as  a  great 
man.  His  name,  of  course,  was  indissolubly  con- 
nected with  that  of  Darwin  as  one  who  had  arrived  in- 
dependently at  the  idea  of  natural  selection  as  the  cause 
of  the  origin  of  species,  and  the  names  of  Darwin  and 
Wallace  will  shine  as  twin-stars  in  the  firmament  of 
science  like  the  names  of  Newton  and  Leibnitz. 

More  even  than  this  might  be  said  truthfully,  for 
both  Wallace  and  Darwin  showed  not  only  fairness  but 
generosity  to  each  other.  In  1858  Wallace  sent  his  famous 
letter  on  Natural  Selection  to  Darwin,  who  had  written 
a  monograph  on  the  subject  in  1842  which  had  been 
shown  only  to  Sir  Joseph  Hooker  and  Sir  Charles  Lyell. 
As  soon  as  Wallace  learned  this  fact  he  gave  all  the 
credit  of  priority  to  Darwin,  and  indeed  was  the  first 
to  christen  the  new  theory  "Darwinism."  And  Darwin, 
not  to  be  outdone,  chided  Wallace  for  speaking  "of  the 
theory  as  mine;  it  is  just  as  much  yours  as  mine." 

Those  who  realize  how  jealous  even  great  men  are 
prone  to  be  in  anything  that  touches  honor  and  reputa- 
tion, will  readily  admit  that  this  is  perhaps  the  noblest 
rivalry  as  yet  recorded  among  men. 

In  spite  of  my  prepossession,  Wallace  did  not  give  me 
at  first  the  sensation  of  'power  and  originality  that  Hux- 

103 


ro4  CONTEMPORARY  PORTRAITS 

ley,  for  instance,  did;  he  seemed  a  little  slow,  even  in 
drawing  deductions;  but  patient  to  a  fault,  singularly 
fair-minded  and  persevering  as  a  natural  force.  He 
grew  upon  you  gradually.  The  more  you  explored  his 
mentality  the  wider  you   found  it. 

He  was  interested  in  every  phase  of  thought ;  the  con- 
nection between  mathematics  and  metaphysics,  the  pro- 
voking laws  that  govern  chances  and  regulate  coinci- 
dences, the  mysterious  movements  of  the  human  spirit 
by  contradictories,  b'y  analogies,  by  merely  verbal  dis- 
sonance and  assonance,  the  gropings  of  consciousness 
in  the  child,  the  senile  decay  of  mind  and  memory,  the 
higher  law  of  sex  unions : — he  had  studied  all  of  them 
and  said  something  worthful  about  most  of  them. 

And  under  the  panoply  of  knowledge  his  mind  moved 
freely;  he  questioned  this  axiom  and  rejected  that  much- 
vaunted  conclusion  without  a  shadow  of  hesitation.  Bit 
by  bit  he  impressed  me  as  some  natural  force  impresses 
despite  its  simplicity. 

His  limitations  sound  like  eulogies;  he  was  so  per- 
fectly sane,  normal,  well-balanced,  that  he  could  not  even 
understand  the  devastating  passions  of  a  Heine  or  a 
Shakespeare — could  not  see  that  such  wild  excess  had 
any  excuse  or  justification;  he  regarded  the  mind  as  in- 
ferior that  could  not  hold  all  passions  in  leash  without 
effort.  He  was  not  a  pilot  for  stormy  seas,  but  the 
solid  land  knew  no  safer,  no  more  excellent  guide.  His 
book  on  "Social  Environment  and  Moral  Progress"  is 
a  classic  in  Sociology  as  valuable  in  its  way,  as  his  im- 
mortal essay  on  Natural  Selection. 


ALFRED  RUSSEL  WALLACE  105 

His  goodness  was  as  memorable  as  his  fairness  of 
vision.  He  always  lived  most  modestly;  never  desired 
riches,  never  feared  poverty,  believed  implicitly  that 
by  devoting  himself  to  his  best  work,  he  would  always 
make  a  decent  living. 

Though  born  and  bred  in  England,  no  snobbism  had 
ever  touched  him,  he  felt  that  the  peasant's  life,  being 
richer  in  experience,  was  more  interesting  than  the  lord's. 
Yet  he  was  of  the  finest  courtesy,  kindness  and  gen- 
erosity; he  loved  to  relieve  any  want  or  alleviate  any 
misery;  he  said  once:  "Vhe  sole  value  of  riches  is  the 
joy  of  giving." 

I  knew  him  for  more  than  quarter  of  a  century  and 
can  recall  no  fault  in  him — no  flaw  even.  His  temper 
was  as  patient  and  quiet  and  fair  as  his  mind,  and  his 
health  was  almost  perfect  even  in  extreme  age.  In  writ- 
ing thus  of  him,  I  feel  as  if  I  were  ladling  out  treacle 
to  my  readers;  but  I  can't  help  it;  I  can't  go  outside 
the  Truth.  Looking  back,  I'm  inclined  to  think  'he  was 
the  wisest  and  best  man  I've  ever  known.  Fortunately 
this  word  may  be  added,  I've  met  dozens  of  bad  men 
who  were  incomparably  more  interesting. 

I  met  Wallace  for  the  first  time  some  forty  years  ago, 
just  after  Henry  George's  book,  "Progress  and  Poverty," 
had  appeared.  Everyone  was  discussing  nationalization 
of  the  land,  and  George's  single-tax  panacea  for  social 
injustice.  Englishmen  were  roughly  divided  into  two 
camps,  those  who  believed  in  land  nationalization  and 
those  who  disbelieved  in  it.  Wallace  believed  in  it,  yet 
saw  quite  plainly  that  it  was  only  one  step  in  the  transfor- 


io6  CONTEMPORARY  PORTRAITS 

mation  of  the  feudal  state  into  an  industrial  state;  but 
the  importance  of  it  as  a  step  forward  he  preached  with 
astonishing  vigor. 

I  was  struck  at  once  by  his  curious  but  perfect  under- 
standing of  the  fact  that  wage-slavery  is  really  more 
degrading  than  chattel-slavery;  that  civilization,  or  the 
humanisation  of  man  in  society,  is  absolutely  impossible 
so  long  as  tmen  and  women  willing  to  work  are  under 
the  'w"hip  of  hunger  and  scourged  by  fear  of  want.  He 
was  the  first  Englishman  I  met  who  understood  this 
cardinal  fact.  He  wrote:  "Our  whole  system  of  society 
is  rotten  from  top  to  bottom,  and  the  Social  Environment 
as  a  whole,  in  relation  to  our  possibilities  and  our  claims, 
is  the  wprst  that  the  world  has  ever  seen." 

The  next  time  I  saw  him  was  in  the  offices  of  the 
Fortnightly  Review.  He  and  Frederic  Chapman,  head 
of  the  publishing  house,  had  been  boys  at  school  together 
in  the  west  of  Engtland;  I  got  them  out  to  dinner,  set 
them  reminiscencing,  and  so  by  schoolboy  memories 
made  Wallace's  more  intimate  acquaintance. 

Chapman  always  asserted  that  Wallace  had  changed 
less  than  any  one;  "he  is  the  boy  grown  large";  but 
that  only  shows  how  little  boys  and  even  men  know  of 
each  other,  for  the  real  Wallace  was  head  and  shoulders 
out  of  poor  Chapman's  sight. 

Later,  Wallace  used  to  come  to  see  me  whenever  he 
was  in  London.  We  often  lunched  together  and  spent 
the  evening  playing  innumerable  games  of  chess ;  he  was 
not  a  great  player,  but  a  good  amateur — careful,  not 
brilliant.     Two  or  three  times  he  stayed  with  me  for  a 


ALI^RED  RUSSEL  WALLACE  107 

day  or  two.  But  as  soon  as  his  business  in  London  was 
finished  he  hurried  "home"  to  his  cottage  in  the  coun- 
try. Gradually  I  came  to  have  the  most  sincere  admira- 
tion for  him  as  a  man  of  the  rarest  qualities. 

His  appearance  was  prepossessing:  he  was  tall,  I 
shoiild  say  over  six  feet  in  iheight,  and  strong  though 
loosely  made.  A  fine  face  framed  in  silver  hair;  the 
features  were  regular,  well-balanced;  the  eyes  splendid 
— ^blue  as  the  sky — the  light  in  them  the  kindly  radiance 
of  genius.  Wallace  had  all  the  candor  of  a  child,  and 
he  met  every  one  with  amiabiHty  and  gentle  courtesy. 
He  would  discuss  any  subject  with  perfect  frankness, 
and  would  listen  to  diametrically  opposed  opinions  with 
a  certain  sympathy  while  defending  his  own  views  with 
ability  and  persistence :  his  adversary  might  see  some 
new  facet  of  truth — a  very  simple  and  great  nature. 

It  is  by  the  heart  we  grow,  and  Wallace  kept  himself 
so  sincere,  so  kindly  that  he  grew  in  wisdom  to  the 
very  end  of  his  life  instead  of  stopping  as  mosit  men  and 
women  stop  growing  mentally,  almost  before  their  bodily 
growth  is  completed.  ,A  quarter  of  a  century  ago  he 
was  quite  conscious,  to  use  his  own  words,  that  "the 
materialistic  mind  of  his  youth  and  early  manhood  was 
being  slowly  moulded  into  a  socialistic,  spiritualistic  and 
theistic  mind."  He  had  crossed  that  desert  of  scepticism 
which  I  speak  of  somethimes  as  stretching  in  front  of  the 
Promised  Land.  He  believed  devoutly  in  God,  in  a  con- 
stantly acting  spirit  of  almost  unimaginable  grandeur 
and  prescience,  and  towards  the  end  of  his  life  he  re- 
garded man  as  a  special  creation.     His  words  admit  of 


io8  CONTEMPORARY  PORTRAITS 

no  doubt.  The  great  apostle  of  evolutionary  science 
speaks  of  "the  Divine  influx,  whitfhj  at  some  definite 
epoch  in  his  evolution  at  once  raised  man  abJove  the  rest 
of  the  animals,  creating  as  it  were  a  new  being  with 
a"  continuous  spiritual  existence  in  a  world  or  worlds 
where  eternal  progress  was  possible  for  him."  The 
conversion  of  such  a  man  as  Wallace,  seems  to  me, 
v^ry  significant. 

Many  of  his  critics  have  written  contemptuously  of 
his  latest  work,  ''Man's  Place  in  the  Universe,"  and 
"The  World  of  Life,"  but  I  knew  Wallace  too  well  to 
disdain  the  gropings  or  even  the  visionary  hopes  of  one 
of  the  finest  spirits  that  ever  wore  earth. 

I  am  not  inclined  to  overrate  Wallace,  though  I  found 
myself  in  agreement  with  him  in  this  return,  so  to  speak, 
to  faith;  for  I  could  never  accept  what  he  used  to  call 
"the  chief  article  of  his  creed." 

I  came  late  to  an  appointment  one  day  and  found 
him  waiting  for  me  in  my  smoking-room.  His  face  was 
transfigured,  smiling  in  a  sort  of  ecstasy.  I  excused  my- 
self to  him  and  said  I  was  sorry  to  be  late. 

"It  is  no  matter."  he  said,  "I  have  been  listening  to 
celestial  harmonies." 

"Really,"  I  exclaimed,  "What  do  you  mean?" 

"Don't  you  hear  the  violin?"  he  said.  "I  can  hear 
the  music  distinctly;  one  was  on  my  knees  playing  just  as 
you  came  in." 

I  stared  at  him  in  amazement;  but  he  was  perfectly 
sincere,  yet  I  could  see  no  trace  of  a  violin. 


ALFRED  RUSSEL  WALLACE  109 

He  held  up  his  hand.  "Listen,"  he  said,  "the  melody 
is  still  clear  though  faint." 

I  listened,  but  heard  nothing;  not  a  sound. 

"You  will  hear  the  tunes,"  he  went  on,  "one  of  these 
days,   for  all  who  love  thein,  hear  them." 

"What  do  you  mean  exactly?"  I  asked,  "Can  you 
recall  melodies  with  such  vividness  that  you  really  hear 
them  again,  as  master-musicians  recall  music  by  reading 
the  score?" 

"Oh,  no,  no,"  he  replied  quietly ;  "I  am  not  a  musician ; 
indeed  until  I  became  a  spiritualist  I  didn't  care  much 
about  music.  I  was  listening  to  the  music  of  the  spheres, 
supernal  melodies."  And  his  face  was  like  that  of  an 
angel;  his  eyes  shining  with  a  sort  of  unearthly  'happi- 
ness. The  transparent  sincerity  of  Wallace  had  so  im- 
pressed me  that  I  was  more  than  surprised;  a  certain 
awe  mingled  with  my  wonder. 

I  want  my  readers  io  understand  this  man.  Fifty 
years  before  he  had  discarded  all  belief  in  Christianity; 
long  before  most  of  us,  he  had  applied  the  doctrine  of 
evolution  to  religion  as  boldly  as  to  art  or  science  and 
had  cleared  his  mind  of  all  childish  illusions.  But  now, 
in  ripest  maturity,  he  came  to  regard  this  little  Earth 
of  ours  as  the  centre  of  the  Universe  and  the  anthropoid, 
Man  as  the  Crown  of  Creation,  the  masterpiece  of  Be- 
ing, an  emanation  of  God  Himself  with  endless  possi- 
bilities of  growth  in  worlds  unrealized. 

And  this  extravagant  Gospel  was  not  merely  a  belief. 
He  had  the  smiling,  unruffled  certitude  of  knowledge. 
The  superstition,  as  I  called  it  to  myself,  was  baffling. 


no  CONTEMPORARY  PORTRAITS 

"Does  he  believe  it?"  I  sometimes  asked  myself,  as  Ter- 
tullian  said,  "because  it  is  incredible?"  (credo  quia  in- 
credible). 

Naturally,  we  had  long  discussions  on  these  matters, 
Wallace  professed  to  know  that  there  was  a  life  after 
death  for  every  man;  this  life,  indeed,  he  regarded  as 
a  mere  moment  in  the  existence  of  the  spirit,  and  won- 
derful to  relate  he  believed  that  personal  identity  would 
b'e  preserved  beyond  the  grave,  I  could  not  follow  him 
in  this  any  more  than  I  could  agree  with  his  spiritualism, 
though  I  admired  the  ineffable,  haunting  beauty  of  the 
creed  and  its  incalculable  effect  upon  life  and  conduct. 
Still  I  could  not  help  "playing  Thomas,  and  can  only 
affirm  that  whenever  he  called  up  spiritual  phenomena 
before  me  I  was  unable  to  witness  the  manifestations; 
with  the  best  will  in  the  world  I  could  never  see  the 
violins  or  'hear  the  celestial  choiring,  I  gave  myself  to 
the  experiments  again  and  again,  but  never  could  catch 
the  faintest  glimpse  of  the  undiscovered  country  that 
may  lie  beyond  the  walls  of  sense. 

Yet  who  shall  say  that  Wallace  was  not  right?  No 
more  simple,  sincere  and  noble  soul  has  lived  in  these 
times.  My  readers  may  remember  how  in  a  previous 
volume  of  "Portraits"  I  have  praised  Meredith  as  al- 
most Shakespeare's  peer,  I  can  only  say  here  that  Wal- 
lace has  left  on  me  nearly  as  deep  an  imprint;  he  was 
not  so  whimsical  as  Meredith,  not  by  any  means  so  gifted 
in  speech ;  but  more  trustworthy  in  s<pite  of  his  spiritual- 
ism— 4  fairer  and  broader,  if  less  gifted  mind. 

One  slightly  humorous  story  may  be  chronicled  here, 


ALFRED  RUSSEL  WALLACE  1 1 1 

for  humor  is  sometimes  the  natural  obverse  of  intense 
seriousness. 

One  evening  I  found  Wallace  in  a  friend's  houae  al- 
ter dinner.  I  knew  most  of  the  people  present ;  cultured 
folk  of  the  upper-middle  class  with  a  good  deal  of  indi- 
viduality if  not  much  originality  of  view.  Wallace  had 
been  made  the  centre  of  the  gathering;  it  was  just  after 
the  appearance  of  his  book,  "The  World  of  Life,"  which 
had  fluttered  the  dove-cotes  of  science  by  its  bold  belief 
in  a  life  after  death  and  indeed  in  life  prolonged  in  other 
worlds  from  everlasiting  to  everlasting.  The  talk  swirled 
about  him  in  drifts  and  eddies  and  he  answered  every 
one  with  extraordinary  knowledge  and  sympathetic  cour- 
tesy. 

At  length  I  brought  up  the  famous  prediction  of  Comte, 
the  great  French  humanitarian,  who  asserted  that  there 
were  two  problems  that  would  never  be  solved  by  man; 
one  was  the  origin  of  life;  the  other  the  chemical  com- 
position of  the  stars.  Within  ten  years  the  chemical 
comtposition  of  the  stars  had  been  discovered  by  Bun- 
sen  and  his  fellow  student,  Kirchoff,  I  think,  and  I  re- 
lated the  student  legend  that  has  grown  up  in  Heidel- 
berg about  the  discovery. 

The  two  had  been  working  for  a  long  time  on  the 
colors  shown  by  different  chemical  elements  when  seen 
through  a  prism.  They  had  established  the  fact  that 
nitrogen,  I  think  it  was,  left  a  wavy  dark  line  on  a  white 
screen.  One  day  the  pair  went  out  to  lundh  in  a  hurry, 
for  they  had  been  working  late  and   feared  the  meal 


112  CONTEMPORARY  PORTRAITS 

would  be  over.  Bunsen  put  the  prism  on  the  wooden  win- 
dow-frame as  he  closed  the  door. 

When  they  returned  they  saw  a  wavy  dark  line  on  the 
big  white  screen. 

"Who's  been  here?"  cried  Bunsen. 

"You  must  have  drawn  that  line,"  said  the  other. 

They  both  stared;  suddenly  one  went  over,  took  up 
the  prism,  and  the  line  disappeared.  The  two  gazed  at 
each  other  while  the  revelation  flooded  the  mind;  the 
nitrogen  line  had  revealed  itself  in  the  rays  of  the  sun! 
The  mystery  of  mysteries  was  solved.  We  can  tell  the 
chemical  composition  of  stars  that  may  have  vanished 
from  the  heavens  a  thousand  years  before  we  were  bom. 

"But  will  the  origin  of  life  be  discovered  as  easily?" 
I  asked  to  change  the  subject. 

Wallace  replied,  as  I  knew  he  would,  that  sooner  or 
later  man  would  divine  all  the  secrets  of  nature,  for  he 
held  all  the  keys  in  his  own  being.  And  he  went  on  to 
say  how  this  problem  of  the  origin  of  life  had  teased 
him  once  in  the  far  East  for  six  or  eight  months.  He 
had  traced  life  back  to  its  simplest  fofms  and  found  it 
hardly  more  than  a  power  of  motion;  as  undeveloped  in 
certain  marine  animals  as  in  certain  plants  that  also  can 
move  from  place  to  place. 

"If  the  monies  we  now  spend  on  armaments,"  he  said, 
"were  spent  on  the  endowment  of  science  for  one  cen- 
tury, that  problem  and  a  thousand  others  of  more  im- 
portance would  certainly  be  solved. 

"Think,"  he  went  on,"  that  we  do  not  yet  know  how 


ALFRED  RUSSEL  WALLACE  113 

even  sex  is  determined ;  our  ignorance  is  abysmal,  crim- 
inal. 

"But  one  day  we  shall  be  able  to  create  Frankensteins 
at  will  and  <perhaps  endow  them  with  wisdom  and  good- 
ness as  supermen  to  teach  our  children." 

"Wonderful,  wonderful,"  piped  up  a  little  man  from 
the  background;  "but  I  think  some  of  us  would  still 
prefer  the  old-fashioned  way  of  creation." 

A  shout  of  laughter  broke  the  spell;  after  that  we 
talked  of  lighter  things.  It  is  only  fair  to  say  that  Wal- 
lace laughed  as  heartily  as  any  of  us.  Wallace's  under- 
standing of  the  evils  of  our  present  day  competitive 
system  and  the  dangers  of  the  selfish  gospel  of  "Evei-y- 
one  for  himself,"  was  almost  uncanny.  In  his  last  book 
I  find,  if  not  a  prediction  of  the  world-war,  a  premoni- 
tion of  the  catastrophe  which  the  national  and  indi- 
vidual selfishness  of  our  time  was  fated  to  produce : 

"There  are,  however,  indications  that  the  whole  marc'h 
of  progress  has  been  dangerously  rapid,  and  it  might 
have  been  safer  if  the  great  increases  of  knowledge  and 
the  vast  accumulations  of  wealth  had  b'een  spread  over 
two  centuries  instead  of  one.  In  that  case  our  higher 
nature  might  have  been  able  to  keep  pace  with  the  grow- 
ing evils  of  superfluous  wealth  and  increasing  luxury, 
and  it  might  have  been  possible  to  put  a  check  upon  them 
before  they  had  attained  the  full  power  for  evil  they  now 
possess. 

"Nevetheless,  the  omens  for  the  future  are  good.  The 
great  body  of  the  more  intelligent  workers  are  determin- 
ed to  have  JUSTICE." 


114  CONTEMPORARY  PORTRAITS 

If  the  English  Order  of  Merit  had  any  meaning  Wal- 
lace's name  would  have  figured  in  the  list  when  the 
Order  was  first  created  instead  of  the  names  of  second- 
rate  generals  and  admirals  whose  service  to  mankind 
never  rose  above  the  quarterdeck  or  mess-room  table. 

But  Alfred  Russd  Wallace  was  too  great  to  be  seen 
or  understood  by  any  of  the  kings  or  ministers  or  cour- 
tiers ;  'his  work  and  his  fame,  his  noble  wisdom  and  simple 
life  belong  to  humanity — are  indeed  as  Thucydides  said 
of  his  great  History,  part  of  the  possession  of  men  for- 
ever. He  was  too  noble  even  to  be  mourned  at  death ; 
the  best  of  him  Hves  on  in  those  he  influenced;  his 
memory  is  an  encouragement — his  achievement  an  in- 
spiration. 


Thomas  Huxley 


THOMAS  HUXLEY 

NATIONS  like  individuals  have  ideals  and  com- 
placently believe  that  they  are  admired  by 
others  on  account  of  them.  Like  individuals, 
too,  nations  frequently  misssee  themselves.  For  instance, 
Germans  are  always  vaunting  their  "Redlichkeit  und 
Treue,"  though  few  foreigners  would  be  found  to  admit 
that  the  chief  Teutonic  virtues  were  honesty  and  loyalty 
rather  than  industry  and  ambition. 

In  the  same  way  the  French  plume  themselves  on  being 
chivalrously  brave  and  generous  to  a  fault,  whereas  they 
are  thrifty  to  meanness,  high  spirited  rather  than  chival- 
rous and  possessed  of  a  keen  sense  of  truth  and  justice. 

The  English,  on  the  other  hand,  are  convinced  that  they 
are  a  plain,  sincere  and  outspoken  folk  who  love  truth 
and  hate  a  lie ;  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  they  think  more 
of  appearances  than  any  other  race  and  have  a  far 
keener  sense  of  physical  beauty  than  of  truth. 

Our  ideal  as  a  rule  is  complementary,  made  up  of  what 
we  lack  of  perfection  and  no  proof  of  an  approximation 
to  it. 

Now  and  than,  however,  a  man  appears  who  represents 
in  himself  the  ideal  of  the  race,  and  it  is  interesting  to 
notice  how  he  stands  out  from  the  crowd  and  is  always 
rather  respected  tha.n  loved.  The  only  Englishman  I 
ever  knew  who  came  near  realizing  the  English  ideal 
was  Thomas   Huxley — a   very  honest,   outspoken  plain 

115 


ii6  CONTEMPORARY  PORTRAITS 

man  who  was  as  devoted  to  truth  as  nine-tenths  of  his 
countrymen  are  to  social  pretences. 

I  cannot  say  I  knew  Huxley  intimately,  though  I  met 
him  6f ten  enough ;  he  was  a  whole  generation  before  me, 
and  I  have  again  and  again  had  occasion  to  notice  that 
one  can  only  know  intimately  the  men  of  one's  own  time 
or  by  gift  of  frank  sympathy  or  similarity  of  striving  some 
few  among  one's  juniors. 

Huxley's  person  wa-s  as  strongly  marked  as  his  mind- 
He  gives  his  height  somewhere  as  five  feet  eleven;  I 
should  have  guessed  him  about  five  feet  nine  or  ten,  spare 
in  figure  with  square  shoulders,  erect  carriage,  and 
vigorous,  abrupt  movements.  The  photograph  I  repro- 
duce gives  his  features,  but  does  not  convey  the  challenge 
of  the  quick  dark  eyes  or  the  pugnacity  of  the  prominent 
cocked  nose,  or  the  determination  of  the  heavy  jaw,  bushy 
eyebrows  and  clamped  lips : — a  fighter's  face,  if  ever 
there  was  one,  and  the  face  of  a  Celt  at  that ;  he  reminded 
me  always  of  Slavin,  the  Irish  pugilist,  though  Slavin 
did  not  show  so  combative  an  air. 

And  the  mind  did  not  belie  the  outward.  Huxley  was 
as  pugnacious  as  any  Irishman,  as  argumentative  as  any 
Scot;  but  one  remarked  almost  immediately  that  he  took 
no  unfair  advantage  in  controversies,  and  even  in  the 
hea>t  of  dispute  never  indulged  in  exaggerated  statements 
or  misrepresented  his  opponent's  case. 

His  uncompromising  love  of  truth  made  him  the  great 
naturalist.  It  was  impossible  not  to  realize  the  high  and 
noble  allegiance  of  the  man.  He  himself  bears  witness  to 
the  general  contempt  of  truth  in  England,  and  his  loyalty 


THOMAS  HUXLEY  it; 

to  it  in  his  fragmentary  "Autobiography,"  where  he 
speaks  of  "that  meUifluous  eloquence  which,  in  this 
country,  leads  far  more  surely  than  worth,  capacity  or 
honest  work,  to  the  highest  places  in  Church  and  State  .  . . 
I  have  been  obliged  to  content  myself  through  life  with 
saying  what  I  mean  in  the  plainest  of  plain  language, 
than  which  I  suppose,  there  is  no  habit  more  ruinous  to 
a  man's  prospects  of  advancement." 

In  France  and  Germany  such  plain  speaking  rather 
helps  a  man ;  but  in  England,  as  in  the  United  States,  the 
moment  you  dissent  from  the  common  opinion,  you  are 
tabooed.  Paine  is  still  regarded  here  as  anything  but  a 
patriot. 

I  do  not  know  exactly  when  my  personal  acquaintance 
with  Huxley  began.  Shortly  after  I  became  editor  of  the 
Portnightly  Review  I  wrote  to  him  telling  him  how  much 
I  admired  his  work  and  hoping  that  we  might  meet, 
adding  that  if  he  had  anything  to  say  on  matters  of 
thought  or  rhorals  I  should  be  delighted  to  publish  it. 

In  reply  I  got  a  pleasant  letter  from  him  inviting  me 
to  call,  and  shortly  afterwards  I  called. 

His  perfect  sincerity,  the  entire  absence  of  pose  or 
pretence  in  him,  won  me  at  once,  and  as  both  of  us  loved 
thought  and  tongue-fencing  we  were  soon  at  it  hammer 
and  tongs,  while  strolling  up  and  down  his  garden.  Some- 
thing he  said  about  morality  started  me  off. 

"Curious,"  I  said,  "that  just  when  we  should  be  taught 
morality — at  school,  when  our  boyish  minds  are  as  plastic 
as  our  bodies,  we  are  trained  in  all  sorts  of  immoralities !" 

"Quite  true,"  he  exclaimed,  "I  had  not  much  schooling. 


ii8  CONTEMPORARY  PORTRAITS 

but  I  agree  with  you  that  the  school  influences  were  the 
lowest  I  have  ever  known.  I  have  met  all  manner  of  men 
in  my  time — good  and  evil — ^but  I  never  met  such  an  irre- 
deemable set  of  scoundrels  as  at  school.  The  boys  were 
bad  enough  with  their  bullying  and  cruelty,  but  the 
masters  ajid  the  atmosphere  were  as  bad  as  bad  could  be." 

"How  do  you  account  for  it?"  I  asked,  "that  in  spite 
of  this,  most  Englishmen  are  resolved  to  praise  their 
schools  and  school  life." 

He  shrugged  his  shoulders. 

"An  extremely  puzzling  question,"  he  remarked 
thoughtfully.     "I  have  no  solution  for  it." 

"Perhaps,"  I  ventured,  "the  majority  have  such  low 
morals  that  they  may  profit  by  what  wcnild  soil  and  bruise 
some  of  us." 

"Possibly,"  he  remarked,  evidently  refusing  to  go  into 
the  matter. 

Another  point  of  agreement  between  us  arose  from 
something  I  said  in  one  of  our  first  talks  about  the 
difficulty  of  making  a  decent  living  in  England  by 
literature. 

"Still  harder  to  get  a  living  by  science/'  he  said,  "much 
harder.  There  are  so  few  places  for  men  of  science,  and 
almost  no  endowment  for  scientific  research :  I  should 
have  thought  the  literary  man  what  with  papers  and  mag- 
azines and  books  could  get  on  much  better." 

"I  was  thinking  of  honorary  rewards  as  well,"  I  inter- 
jected, "immediate  recogtiition  by  one's  peers.  At  twenty- 
five  or  twenty-six  you  were  elected  a  Fellow  of  the 
Royal   Society ;  the   following  year  you   got  a   medaJ ; 


THOMAS  HUXLEY  119 

everyone  regarded  you  as  a  man  of  great  distinction; 
you  could  marry  and  do  as  you  wished." 

"In  the  honor  way,'  he  repHed,  "I  think  you  are  right ; 
all  the  bigwigs  in  science  were  very  kind  to  me  from  the 
beginning,  and  I  believe  the  bigwigs  in  literature  are  not 
kind  to  the  young  men ;  perhaps  because  the  training  in 
science  is  training  in  truth  and  in  appreciation  of  all  good 
work;  but  in  money  rewards  I  think  men  of  science  are 
probably  worse  off  than  men  of  letters.  I  had  to  serve 
longer  than  Jacob  for  my  wife;  we  were  engaged  eight 
years  ago  before  I  could  venture  to  marry. 

"What  used  to  annoy  me  at  first  was  that  first-rate 
men  hke  Owen,  who  had  a  European  reputation  second 
only  to  that  of  Cuvier,  only  received  $1,500  a  year  as 
Hunterian  professor,  less  than  the  salary  of  many  a 
bank  manager.  Forbes,  too,  and  Hooker  were  first-rate 
men  ;  had  they  turned  their  abilities  to  business  they  must 
have  made  large  fortunes ;  yet  they  could  scarcely  live. 
Some  day  or  other  a  business  world  will  find  it  must  pay 
men  of  science  infinitely  better  than  it  does  to-day. 

"But  after  all,"  he  went  on ;  "the  material  rewards  do 
not  matter  much,  so  long  as  one  gets  a  chance  to  do  the 
best  in  one,  and  I  cannot  say  thajt  I  should  have  done 
much  better  if  I  had  had  heaps  of  money." 

"That  is  the  motive  power  in  us,  is  it  not?"  I  cried. 
"To  do  the  best  we  can — the  best  in  us." 

"Surely,"  he  rejoined,  "I  used  to  call  it  my  demon  which 
drove  me  to  work  and  would  give  me  no  rest  till  I  had 
reached  the  highest  in  me." 

Huxley  would  not  promise  to  write  for  me,  telling  me 


120  CONTEMPORARY  PORTRAITS 

he  was  pledged  to  Knowles,  the  editor  of  the  Nineteenth 
Century,  a  friend  of  many  years'  standing. 
;    "You  see,"  he  said,  "we  old  fellows  like  sugar,  and 
Knowles  gives  me  lots  of  it — a  proof  of  second  child- 
hood, I  suppose,"  and  he  laughed  half  shamefacedly. 

As  soon  as  my  first  story  came  out  in  The  Fortnightly 
Review  I  sent  it  to  him  and  asked  him  what  he  thought  of 
"A  Modern  Idyll."    I  quote  from  his  reply : 

"Hodeslea,  Eastbourne, 
"June  2,  1 891. 
"My  dear  Mr.  Harris : 

"I  greatly  delight  in  stories,  and  that  which  you  have 
been  so  kind  as  to  send  me  is  of  the  kind  which  I  specially 
appreciate,  and  very  rarely  have  the  chance  of  reading, 

"Indeed,  except  Browning  and  Daudet,  I  do  not  know 
among  the  authors  with  whom  I  am  acquainted,  where  .1 
should  find  such  a  true  and  subtle  psychological  study. 
Alike  in  conception  and  execution  'A  Modem  Idyll' 
strikes  me  as  a  very  thorough  piece  of  work — so  far  a^s 
it  goes " 

He  went  on  to  suggest  that  I  should  continue  the  story ,^ 
expand  it  into  a  long  novel ;  he  thought  it  a  "grand 
subject." 

I  afterwards  sent  him  "Montes,"  but  he  did  not  care 
so  much  for  it.  I  wanted  to  meet  him  again,  so  I  called 
and  found  him  this  time  not  frank  and  sincere  merely, 
but  cordial.  He  would  hardly  believe  that  I  had  written 
no  stories  before ;  that  both  of  the  stories  I  had  sent  him 
were  my  earliest  attempts  in  fiction.  He  praised  the 
reticence  in  the  telling,  citing  Goethe's  great  word: 


THOMAS  HUXLEY  121 

"In  der  Beschrankung  zeigt  sich  erst  der  Meister." 
I  wrote  to  him  a  day  or  two  afterwards,  telling  him 
how  I  had  been  attacked  by  the  Rev.  Newman  Hall  and 
other  clergymen  and  in  the  press  for  my  outspokenness 
in  "A  Modern  Idyll.'"  He  answered  me  in  this  post- 
script, which  I  give  in  facsimile:  "The  Public,  as  Mr. 
Bumble  said  of  the  Lazv,  "is  a  hass".  Write  to  satisfy 
yourself.  The  public  may  kick  tip  its  heels  at  first;  but 
will  surely  follow  with  true  asinine  docility  in  time." 


Such  frankness,  such  a  modernity  of  outlook  seemed 
to  me  extraordinary  in  an  Englishman,  and  delightful  to 


122  CONTEMPORARY  PORTRAITS 

boot.    I  was  very  eager  to  find  out  about  his  youth ;  had 
he  sowed  wild  oats?    He  was  just  as  frank  about  this. 

"I  am  ashamed  of  it,"  he  said ;  "but  in  my  youth  I  com- 
mitted all  sorts  of  sins — few  worse  men ;  all  the  rest  of 
my  life  has  been  a  painful  climbing  up  out  of  the  mire 
towards  better  things." 

"What  helped  you  most  ?"  I  asked. 

"Carlyle,  I  think,"  he  said;  "more  than  any  man;  he 
taught  me  that  one  can  ha/ve  a  deep  sense  of  religion 
without  any  Christianity  or  theology. 

"Then  there  was  my  work ;  but  most  of  all  love  was 
my  teacher — love  for  my  wife  showed  me  the  beautiful 
things  in  human  nature,  and  then  love  for  the  children 
taught  me  more  from  day  to  day."  .  .  . 

I  began  to  think  him  one  of  the  bravest  and  wisest  of 
men,  especially  when  I  found  that  he  held  the  sanest  view 
of  personal  immortality. 

"I  see  no  reason  for  believing  it,"  he  said ;  "on  the  other 
hand  I  have  no  means  of  disproving  it.  I  perhaps  might 
say  I  desire  it,  but  my  work  has  forced  me  to  make  my 
aspirations  conform  themselves  to  facts,  and  not  try  and 
make  facts  fit  my  aspirations."  He  paused  for  a  while, 
and  then  went  on,  "the  thing  that  always  impresses  me 
most  is  the  absolute  justice  of  the  system  of  things.  The 
gravitation  of  suffering  to  sin  is  as  certain  as  the  gravi- 
tation of  the  earth  to  the  sun.' 

"Great  goodness !"  I  cried  ;  "you  cannot  hold  that  faith  ; 
that  is  what  the  old  Jews  seem  to  have  believed  in — the 
ancient  Hebrew  creed ;  but  Job  saw  that  the  belief  would 
not  hold  water, 


THOMAS  HUXLEY  123 

"He  declared  he  had  been  righteous  and  just  all  the 
days  of  his  life  and  yet  was  plagued  beyond  enduring." 

"I  care  nothing  about  Job,"  replied  Huxley,  and  his 
lips  tightened  and  his  jaw  stuck  out.  "It  is  plain  to  me 
from  my  own  life  and  the  life  of  others,  that  the  wicked 
come  to  grief  and  the  righteous  to  happiness  and  joy." 

"Great  Scott!"  I  ejaculated.  "Your  creed  is  simply 
incredible.  A  drunken  father  strikes  his  wife  and  the 
child  is  born  a  cripple,  and  in  consequence  suffers  life- 
long agony.  Can  you  see  justice  in  that  ?  Justice  in  the 
crucifixion  of  Jesus ;  justice  in  the  poisoning  of  Socrates ; 
justice  in  your  own  small  pay  and  being  fenced  away 
from  the  kingdom  of  love  for  eight  years.     Justice!" 

Again  his  lips  tightened. 

"Of  course,"  I  said;  "there  is  a  sort  of  rough  justice 
in  the  world — an  approximation  to  justice.  We  are  all 
conscious  of  that.  Conscious  that  if  we  get  drunk  we 
shall  probably  have  a  headache  next  morning ;  but  I  have 
sometimes  drunk  a  good  deal  too  much  and  been  benefited 
by  it.  It  is  the  perpetual  terrible  injustice  of  life  that  is 
apalling,  that  distracts  all  the  sympathetic  and  sensitive 
spirits,  and  leads  to  soulnumbing  despair,"  He  shook  his 
head  and  changed  the  subject. 

It  was  that  talk  which  led  me  to  study  Huxley.  There 
were  dreadful  limitations  in  him.  I  began  to  see  how 
English  he  was — shallow,  I  mean,  not  deep-souled.  The 
English  are  good  workmen ;  they  have  no  great  thinkers. 
Their  success  in  practical  life  comes  from  shallowness  of 
feeling;  they  will  never  be  like  the  Jews,  saviours  of  men, 
or  like  the  Greeks  and  steer  humanitv  to  new  ideals. 


124  CONTEMPORARY  PORTRAITS 

But  I  felt  sure  I  could  trust  Huxley's  instincts  bf  fair 
play,  and  so  I  went  at  him  again  for  an  article.  I  wanted 
him  to  write  on  the  ethics  of  evolution,  and  felt  that  if 
I  provoked  new  thoughts  in  him  he  would  do  it  for  me. 
He  began  by  saying  again : 

"I  am  so  bounden  to  Knowles,"  aidding,  with  his 
habitual  frankness:  "I  suppose  I  shall  have  to  write  for 
you,  too. 

"The  phrase  'the  survival  of  the  fittest'  is  ambigous, 
as  you  say.  'Fittest'  has  a  touch  of  'best'  about  it — a  sort 
of  moral  flavor,  whereas  in  nature  what  is  fittest  d^ends 
upon  conditions. 

"If  our  world  were  to  grow  cold  the  survival  of  the 
fittest  might  bring  about  in  the  vegetable  kingdom  a 
growth  of  humbler  and  humbler  organisms  till  the  'fittest' 
might  mean  nothing  but  a  lichen ;  but  in  the  evolution  of 
man  there  is  an  ethical  process  which  has  grown  out  of 
the  cosmic  process  and  limits  the  area  of  struggle  and 
competition.    We  are  slowly  growing  better. 

"At  first  the  ape  and  tiger  instincts  are  pretty  dominant, 
but  as  soon  as  families  are  grouped  into  clans  a  blood  tie 
is  engendered  that  assures  a  certain  loose  unity,  and  the 
spirit  of  the  herd  comes  in  to  restrain  individual  assertion. 
This  sympathy  with  others  of  our  kin  is  the  germ  of 
ethics,  and  so  we  have  the  evolution  of  that  altruistic 
feeling  which  we  call  conscience." 

"I  know  all  that,"  I  said,  "but  it  won't  do  for  me. 
There  are  qualities  in  us  which  cannot  be  evolved  into 
higher  and  richer  forms,  for  they  tend  to  self-destruction. 
Pity,  self-sacrifice,  the  desire  that  comes  to  one  sometimes- 


THOMAS  HUXLEY  125 

for  noble  self-immolation.  It  causes  ai  man  who  cannot 
swim  to  jump  overboard  to  help  a  drowning  person.  You 
cannot  tell  me  that  that  tends  to  survival ;  it  leads  to  his 
drowning,  and  so  prevents  him  from  transmitting  his 
qualities  to  his  kind.  Sympathy  is  a  source  of  weakness 
in  the  struggle  of  life,  and  should  not  go  a  bit  beyond  the 
necessities  of  the  case;  but  it  is  not  even  honored  by  us 
till  it  goes  far  beyond  necessity,  far  beyond  even  what  we 
regard  as  reasonable." 

"Yes,  that  is  true,"  Huxley  admitted  musingly.  "It  is 
difficult  to  be  sure  about  the  matter." 

"I  remember  reading  once  of  an  Oxford  man,"  I  went 
on,  "a  Fellow  of  his  college,  who  jumped  in  front  of  a 
runaway  horse  in  order  to  pull  a  poor  old  apple  woman 
out  of  danger.  The  old  woman  was  saved,  but  the 
scholar's  thigh  was  broken  and  he  died  a  week  or  two 
later.  I  remember  Francis  Newman,  brother  of  the 
Cardinal,  telling  me  that  he  thought  the  man  had  acted 
wrongly — disgracefully — throwing  his  valuable  life  away 
for  a  worthless  one ;  but  I  insisted  that  that  was  the  es- 
sence of  all  self-sacrifice.  If  it  were  reasonable  we  all 
ought  to  do  it,  but  our  admiration  went  to  the  self- 
sacrifice  that  was  unreasonable." 

"I  see,  I  see,"  cried  Huxley ;  "it  is,  of  course,  very  dif- 
ficult to  decide.  You  may  be  right.  I  will  try  to  write 
something  for  you."    And  we  left  it  at  that. 

He  was  66 — thirty  years  older  than  I  was — and  just 
as  willing  to  force  his  mind  to  occupy  itself  with  the 
furthest  reaches  of  thought  as  he  could  have  been  as  a 
young  man.    But  I  was  always  conscious  of  limitation  in 


126  CONTEMPORARY  PORTRAITS 

him.  He  had  not  anything  like  the  depth  of  sympathy  or 
width  of  mind  of  a  Carlyle,  or  a  Meredith,  to  say  nothing 
of  Goethe  or  Shakespeare. 

We  lunched  together  this  same  year  and  talked  about 
politics.  We  agreed  in  detesting  Gladstone,  but  though 
he  spoke  with  some  admiration  of  Parnell  he  suddenly 
burst  into  a  tirade  against  the  Irish.  Healy  and  Sexton 
had  promised  fidelity  to  their  leader,  and  now  declared 
that  they  only  did  it,  believing  that  Parnell  would  resign — 
a  sort  of  letter  of  commendation  to  a  servant  if  he  took 
his  discharge  easily. 

"What  a  pack  of  liars,"  cried  Huxley.  "That  is  at  the 
bottom  of  the  whole  Irish  question.  The  Irish  cannot  tell 
the  truth." 

He  made  me  smile.  At  bottom  he  was  so  very 
English. 

"What  are  you  grinning  at?"  he  barked. 

"At  you,"  I  replied,  "and  your  sweeping  condemnation. 
I  have  seen  no  Englishman  yet  with  the  sensitiveness  for 
the  truth  I  have  known  in  several  Irishmen.  The  source 
of  the  Irish  trouble  is  the  fear  on  the  part  of  the  English 
that  the  Irish  will  outdo  them.  The  reason  they  got  rid 
of  the  Parliament  in  Ireland  was  because  the  debates  on 
College  Green  were  so  much  more  interesting  than  those 
in  Westminster.  They  would  be  again  to-morrow  if  we 
had  an  Irish  Parliament.  And  the  Irish  would  try  all 
sorts  of  experiments  in  economics ;  they  might  even 
nationalize  the  land ;  probably  would ;  and  the  English  are 
frightened  of  that,  too." 

Seeing  him  frown  I  went  on  maliciously.    "The  land 


THOMAS  HUXLEY  127 

must  be  nationalized  in  Ireland  because  Ireland  is  like  a 
saucer.  You  cannot  drain  your  land  when  your  neighbors' 
water  is  running  into  it;  the  first  act  of  a  great  Irish 
republic  would  be  to  nationalize  the  land.  They  might 
teach  you  English  all  sorts  of  lessons  and  you  are  most 
unwilling  learners." 

"That  is  true,"  he  cried,  laughing ;  "you  have  got  me 
there." 

A  little  later  we  had  a  talk  about  his  contest  with  Glad- 
stone over  the  Gadarene  swine. 

"The  idea,"  I  said,  "of  your  arguing  with  Gladstone 
about  such  nonsense!  You  might  just  as  well  go  into  a 
ring  to  wrestle  with  a  naked  savage  whose  body  was 
smeared  with  oil." 

But  he  would  not  have  it;  he  had  all  an  Englishman's 
peculiar  reverence  for  position,  "Gladstone  was  twice 
Prime  Minister  .  .  .  enormous  influence/  and  so  forth 
and  so  on. 

A  little  larter  I  got  an  essay  from  him  on  that  curious 
moral  difficulty  I  have  already  spoken  of,  which  the 
doctrine  of  "the  survival  of  the  fittest"  does  not  elucidate. 
He  met  the  point  frankly;  but  he  would  not  admit,  as 
Alfred  Russel  Wallace  admitted,  that  our  admiration  for 
self-sacrifice  could  never  have  come  from  the  herd-feel- 
ing, for  it  goes  beyond  reason  and  is  condemned  by  the 
herd-feeling.  To  the  English  state  the  life  of  a  gifted 
young  professor  was  far  more  valuable  than  that  of  an 
old  apple-woman.  Our  admiration  of  heroism  is  as 
intuitive  as  our  love  of  beauty  ;  is,  indeed,  as  Wallasce  saw, 
the  best  proof  that  some  divine  impulse  is  working  in 


128  CONTEMPORARY  PORTRAITS 

us  and  through  us  to  a  fulfilment  beyond  our  imagining. 

Huxley's  mind  had  its  limitations ;  his  sympathies  were 
somewhat  narrow ;  but  the  beauty  and  nobility  of  his 
character  grew  upon  one.  He  was  generosity  itself  to  all 
youthful  or  worthy  striving,  and  bit  by  bit,  the  enthusiasm 
of  the  younger  scientists  helping,  he  came  to  a  position  of 
unique  authority.  When  he  was  made  of  the  Privy 
Council  everyone  was  astonished  and  rejoiced,  as  one  is 
astonished  in  England  when  honor  is  paid  to  the  honor- 
able. 

So,  after  all  his  controversies,  and  they  were  as  many 
as  the  years  of  his  life,  he  came  in  the  fullness  of  time 
to  leisure  and  dignity  and  the  enjoyment  of  the  winged 
hours. 

His  married  life  had  always  been  aJmost  ideal ;  he  never 
sent  an  article  to  the  printer  before  his  wife  had  read  and 
declared  it  good,  and  whenever  she  objected  to  any  pas- 
sage he  knew  at  once  that  it  needed  revision. 

All  his  life  had  been  a  moral  growth,  and  his  greatness 
of  character  often  brought  him  to  extraordinary  wisdom. 
For  instance,  he  was  approached  shortly  before  his  death 
by  an  anti-militaristic  society,  and  he  answered  them  in 
the  following  words,  which  I  think  worth  weighing  and 
assimilating  today,  though  they  were  written  offhand  five 
and  twenty  years  ago. 

"In  my  opinion  it  is  a  delusion  to  attribute  the  growth 
of  armaments  to  the  'exactions  of  militarism.'  The  'exac- 
tions of  industrialism'  generated  by  international  com- 
mercial competition,  may,  I  believe,  claim  a  much  larger 
share  in  promoting  that  growth.    Add  to  this  the  French 


THOMAS  HUXLEY  129 

thirst  for  revenge,  the  most  just  determination  of  the 
German  and  Italian  peoples  to  assert  their  national  unity ; 
the  Russian  Paaslavonic  fanaticism  and  desire  for  free 
access  to  the  western  seas ;  the  Papacy  steadily  fishing  in 
troubled  waters  for  the  means  of  recovering  its  lost  (I 
hope  for  ever  lost)  temporal  possessions  and  spiritual 
supremacy;  the  'sick  man'  (Turkey)  kept  alive  only  be- 
caiuse  each  of  his. doctors  is  afraid  of  the  other  becoming 
his  heir." 

With  Huxley  died  a  great  moral  influence  and  no  one 
in  the  present  generation  occupies  the  throne  he  left 
vacant.  When  a  generation  or  more  elapses  before  any- 
one is  found  to  fill  your  plaice,  you  may  be  said  to  have 
achieved  a  certain  measure  of  immortality.  Huxley  was 
always  contemptuous  of  fame,  declaring  frequently  that 
he  would  not  give  a  button  for  posthumous  reputation. 
Nor  has  he  left  any  work  that  will  enshrine  him  in  the 
memory  of  men.  But  his  life  and  example  were  inspiring 
and  he  will  live  on  in  the  spiritual  influence  he  exercised 
over  many  of  the  best  men  in  his  own  time. 


■M 

i 

/*   MjHMj|fc|&| 

^^^^K  \^ 

1 

Louis  Wilkinson 


LOUIS  WILKINSON 

BY  every  right  of  blood  and  birth  Louis  Wilkinson 
should  have  been  among  the  most  conventional  of 
Englishmen.  He  was  born  and  brought  up  in  the 
straitest  sect  of  the  Pharisees  and  yet  appears  to  have 
sucked  in  revolt  with  his  mother's  milk.  I  have  no  ready- 
made  or  even  reasonable  expfanation  of  his  phenomenon ; 
Wilkinson  must  be  accepted  as  a  "sport"  just  like  a  child 
of  ordinary  parents  who  is  endowed  with  six  fingers. 

He  was  born  December  17,  1881,  at  Aldeburgh  in  Suf- 
folk. His  father  was  the  Rev.  Walter  Wilkinson,  Fel- 
low ofl  Worcester  College,  Oxford,  distinguished  in 
the  chess  world  as  an  amateur.  This  Walter  Wilkinson 
travelled  all  over  Scandinavia,  and  "discovered"  Ibsen 
before  Mr.  William  Archer,  but  failed  to  interest  anyone 
in  the  slightest  degree  in  Ibsen's  work. 

Louis  Wilkinson  was  educated  at  Radley  College,  one 
of  the  large  English  "public  schools,"  after  having  gained 
a  classical  scholarship  there  as  a  result  of  the  classical 
education  received  from  his  father.  In  1899  he  won  an- 
other classical  scholarship  at  Pembroke  College,  Oxford — 
an  event  which  had  a  sequel  of  some  significance.  From 
his  first  term  at  Oxford,  Wilkinson  displayed  a  most 
violent  antagonism  to  the  ruling  undergraduate  caste — 
the  "bloods,"  in  'Varsity  parlance ;  or,  to  use  a  term  that 
will  convey  a  clearer  description  to  present-day  American 
readers,  the  Junkers,  who  based  their  pretensions  to  as- 

131 


132  CONTEMPORARY  PORTRAITS 

cendancy  in  college  and  university  life  on  their  prowess 
in  sport  and  in  athletics.  ' 

Wilkinson,  and  his  few  friends  who  sympathized  with 
his  rebellion,  fought  the  pretensions  of  this  governing 
class  in  every  possible  way,  by  propaganda  and  by  direct 
action.  The  "Junior  Common  Room",  a  dub  to  which 
access  was  by  right  free  to  every  member  of  Pembroke 
College,  had  been  for  some  time  closed  to  all  except  the 
Junkers  and  their  friends  and  toadies.  This  arbitrary 
denial  by  the  few  of  the  rights  of  the  many  was  the  object 
of  special  attack  by  Wilkinson  and  his  party.  A  man- 
ifesto was  drafted,  couched  in  phrases  which  no  doubt 
revealed  all  the  pompous  gravity  of  adolescence,  protest- 
ing against  the  claims  of  a  handful  of  men  to  arrogate  to 
themselves  the  privileges  that  belonged  to  the  Common- 
wealth. A  surprisingly  large  number  of  signatures  was 
secured,  but  the  manifesto  failed,  and  the  college  authori- 
ties showed  unmistakably  that  their  sympathies  were  with 
the  Junker  caste. 

Meanwhile,  an  insolent  notice  posted  by  the  leader 
of  the  athletic  party,  that  "it  was  not  only  the  duty,  but 
the  business,"  of  all  the  members  of  the  college  to  run 
along  the  towing-path  while  one  of  the  university  rowing 
races  was  in  progress,  further  helped  in  bringing  matters 
to  a  head.  Wilkinson  and  his  friends  of  course  refused 
to  go  near  the  towing-path.  Shortly  afterward,  Wilkin- 
son's rooms  in  collie  were  raided  in  his  absence  by  the 
leaders  of  the  athletic  set,  and  the  furniture  mauled  after 
the  fashion  of  such  "raggings." 

A  special  point  was  made  of  the  mishandling  of  a 


LOUIS  WILKINSON  133 

framed  photograph  of  Oscar  Wilde,  with  whom  Wilkin- 
son had  corresponded  for  two  or  three  years  before  his 
death.  He  had  never  met  WiMe,  but  entertained  and 
expressed  high  admiration  for  him  as  an  artist  and  a  re- 
volutionary figure.  This  fact,  and  the  further  fact  that 
Wilkinson  made  no  secret  of  his  contempt  for  the  forced 
routine  of  college  chapel  services,  encouraged  his  more 
malignant  enemies  in  the  hopes  that  he  and  his  friends 
might  be  laid  low  by  the  time-honored  reactionary  trick 
of  accusations  of  immorality  and  blasphemy. 

Their  dangerous  activities  in  opposition  to  the  Junker 
regime  would  thus  be  stopped  forever.  Painstaking  ef- 
forts of  inquiry  failed,  however,  to  collect  even  the  most 
meagre  evidence  of  immorality  against  either  Wilkinson 
or  those  associated  with  him;  consequently  this  charge 
was  soon  abandoned,  and  the  "Junior  Common  Room" 
men  determined  to  make  things  hot  for  the  offenders  by 
a  continuation  of  the  policy  of  "ragging"  their  rooms 
rather  than  by  laying  "information."  which  had  so  ob- 
viously littk  or  no  relation  to  truth. 

But  the  Wilkinson  faction  was  not  inclined  to  take  this 
kind  of  treatment  in  the  proper  spirit  of  humility.  Being 
in  a  hopeless  minority,  they  realized  that  resistance  of  the 
usual  kind  was  foredoomed  to  failure,  and  they  therefore, 
perhaps  somewhat  in  the  spirit  of  melodrama,  provided 
themselves  with  revolvers,  and  advertised  their  determina- 
tion to  use  them  in  the  face  of  any  assault  either  on  their 
persons  or  their  property.  The  threat  was  put  to  the 
test,  and  the  raiders  of  the  next  set  of  rooms,  confronted 
by  loaded  firearms,  thought  better  of  their  intention  and 


134  CONTEMPORAliLY  PORTRAITS 

retired.  No  further  attempt  at  violence  was  made :  resort 
was  now  had  to  other  means  and  the  cooperation  of  the 
college  authorities  was  secured  by  the  undergraduate 
oligarchy.  ^ 

The  master  of  Pembroke  College  was  then,  and  I 
believe  still  is,  the  Right  Reverend  John  Mitchinson, 
sometime  Bishop  of  Barbadoes.  This  individual  signed 
his  letters  during  his  episcopacy  "J^^i^  Windward  Isles," 
thus  courting  a  deserved  ridicule,  which  annoyed  him 
extremely.  He  was  a  didactic  disciplinarian  of  the  worst 
Prussian  type,  with  all  the  tyrannical  impulses  which  so 
frequently  obsess  men  of  low  birth  who  have  risen  to 
authority.  He  was  a  religious  bigot  and  a  fanatical  con- 
servative. Obviously  no  head  of  a  college  could  have 
been  better  qualified  by  character  and  opinions  to  col- 
laborate with  the  enemies  of  the  Wilkinson  party.  How 
the  undergraduate  Junkers  "worked"  him  is  not  clear, 
for  secrecy  shrouded  their  manoeuvres,  but  the  task  of 
aligning  him  against  such  rebels  could  not  have  been 
difficult. 

The  undisputed  fact  is  that  he  summoned  Wilkinson 
and  four  of  Wilkinson's  most  "dangerous"  friends,  and 
summarily  informed  them  that  they  were  no  longer 
members  of  the  college.  The  reason  given  was  that  they 
had  been  proved  guilty  of  "blasphemy",  but  not  a  single 
specific  charge  was  put  forward,  and  therefore  any  de- 
fense, even  had  it  been  allowed,  was  out  of  question. 
The  men  were  not  confronted  by  their  accusers.  There 
was  not  the  remotest  semblance  of  a  trial.  The  Bishop 
contented  himself  by  saying  that  the  contract  between 


LOUIS  WILKINSON  135 

the  college  and  the  undergraduates  was  one  terminable 
at  pleasure  on  either  side,  and  that  he  chose  to  terminate 
it.  The  real  reason,  of  course,  was  that  Wilkinson  and 
his  friends  held  and  acted  on  opinions  that  ran  counter 
to  the  interests  of  the  college  oligarchy ;  therefore  it  was 
necessary  to  get  rid  of  them. 

The  cup  of  Wilkinson's  guilt  ran  over,  when  it  was 
known  that  he  opposed  the  Boer  War  and  was  a  con- 
temptuous critic  of  British  jingoism.  In  1901  such  an 
attitude  ensured  a  dangerous  unpopularity. 

Mr.  Labouchere's  journal,  Truth,  ran  a  series  of  ar- 
ticles under  the  title  of  "A  'Varsity  Star-Chamber,"  ex- 
posing what  he  called  "The  Pembroke  College  Scandal." 

In  1902  Wilkinson,  helped  enormously  by  the  influence 
and  the  exertions  of  his  father,  who  realized  at  once  the 
grossness  of  the  injusice  that  had  been  committed, 
matriculated  at  St.  John's  College,  Cambridge.  He  now 
turned  from  classics  to  the  study  of  history,  winning  an 
Historical  Exhibition  in  1903,  and  graduating  with 
honors  in  1905.  In  this  year  he  published  his  first  novel, 
"The  Puppet's  Dallying,"  which,  though  naturally  im- 
mature, had  a  certain  succes  d'estvme,  being  favorably 
noticed  by  the  more  important  London  journals. 

In  the  summer  of  1905  Wilkinson  was  invited  by  the 
Philadelphia  Society  for  Extension  of  University  Teach- 
ing to  come  to  America  for  a  six  months'  lecture  tour. 
During  the  period  from  September,  1905,  to  March, 
1906,  Wilkinson  laid  the  foundation  of  his  prestige  as  a 
lecturer  on  literary  and  social  subjects  in  this  country, 
and  he  has  lectured  over  here  in  the  winter  months  con- 


136  CONTEMPORARY  PORTRAITS 

tinuously  to  the  present  date,  with  the  single  exception 
of  the  1914 — 1915  season,  which  he  spent  in  Spain  and 
Italy.  In  1914  he  received  the  degree  of  Doctor  of  Let- 
ters from  St.  John's  College,  Annapolis,  in  recognition 
of  the  value  of  his  lectures  there.  In  1909  he  had  become 
co-founder  with  Dr.  Arnold  Shaw  of  the  University 
Lecturers'  Association  of  New  York,  an  association  that 
was  speedily  joined  by  John  Cowper  Powys  and  other 
distinguished  speakers.  The  friendship  between  Powys 
and  Wilkinson  is  a  curious  example  of  the  attraction  of 
opposites,  for  Wilkinson's  antipathy  to  the  essential 
elements  of  Powys'  outlook  on  life  and  literature  is 
deep-rooted. 

From  1905  to  1914  Wilkinson,  disgusted  by  the  im- 
perfections of  his  first  novel,  made  no  serious  attempts 
to  write,  but  in  the  summer  of  191 4,  at  Siena,  he  began 
his  second  novel,  "The  Buffoon."  It  was  completed  in 
the  following  year,  and  published  by  Knopf  in  the  spring 
of  191 6  and  in  England  by  Constable's. 

During  the  summer  and  fall  of  191 6  Wilkinson  wrote 
his  third  novel,  "A  Chaste  Man,"  which  was  published 
in  the  fall  of  191 7. 

The  scene  of  the  novel  is  laid  in  Chiswick,  a  suburb  of 
London;  the  character  of  the  hero  is  anamalous  yet 
peculiarly  English,  for  in  England  a  Joseph  is  still  pos- 
sible if  not  praiseworthy,  whereas  in  every  other  quarter 
of  the  globe  a  Joseph  would  be  ridiculous  and  disgraceful, 
if  not  utterly  inconceivable.  The  philandering  hero  who 
wins  the  young  girl's  love  and  then  has  scruples  about 
embracing  her,  does  not  impress  me  in  spite  of  his  chas- 


LOUIS  WILKINSON  137 

tity,  though  he  is  excellently  drawn;  his  cold  snobbish 
wtife,  too,  fails  to  reach  my  sympathy,  but  the  Flynn 
family — the  wise  and  outspoken  but  drunken  Irish  father, 
the  three  unconventional  vividly  differentiated  daughters 
and  the  boarders — is  of  most  pathetic  interest,  and  the 
slip  of  the  hero's  sister  gives  the  very  imprint  of  life 
itself,  an  impression  only  reached  by  consummate  art. 

It  is  exasperating,  though  natural  enough,  that  England 
should  still  lead  these  United  States  in  all  literary 
achievements.  I  have  just  read  half  a  dozen  American 
novels  by  well-known  writers,  but  not  one  of  them  can  be 
compared  either  as  works  of  art  or  as  transcripts  of  life 
with  this  book.  I  would  rather  have  written  "A  Chaste 
Man"  than  any  novel  of  Dreiser  save  "Sister  Carrie," 
and  Wilkinson's  heroine  Olga  is  an  even  finer  creation 
than  Carrie.  I  have  always  faith  in  the  future  of  a  man 
who  can  paint  women  to  the  life.  Besides,  Wilkinson's 
style  is  excellent — simple,  sincere,  but  touched  now  and 
again  to  beauty.  Here  is  a  sentence :  "She  stood  before 
him  with  her  rich  young  head  drooped  and  her  child's 
figure  a  little  swaying" — that  rich"  is  pure  magic. 

Wilkinson's  latest  book  is  perhaps  his  best.  "Brute 
Gods"  deserves  to  be  read  very  carefully  even  by  those 
who  think  themselves  masters  of  the  story-telling  art. 

I  do  not  by  this  mean  that  the  book  as  a  whole  is  well 
told  or  well  constructed.  It  is  not.  In  the  beginning  we 
have  a  family  lightly  sketched,  the  wife  and  mother  has 
run  away  with  a  lover  and  as  soon  as  we  get  to  know  the 
father  and  husband  we  understand  why  any  woman 
would  run  away  from  him. 


138   '         CONTEMPORARY  PORTRAITS 

What  makes  the  book  is  the  description  of  the  love  of  a 
boy  of  nineteen,  Alec,  for  Gillian  Collett,  a  woman  six  or 
seven  years  older  than  himself,  who  is  rather  ashamed 
of  carrying  on  with  a  boy,  and  yet  is  seduced  time  and 
again  by  the  boy's  passionate  desire  and  whole-hearted 
abandonment  to  his  affection.  The  older  woman  tries 
to  feel  cynical  towards  the  youth,  but  she  cannot;  his 
passionate  admiration  is  too  sweet  to  her ;  in  spite  of  her- 
self she  yields  more  and  more  to  him.  Here  is  a  page 
I  must  reproduce;  for  it  seems  to  me  of  extraordinary 
quality : 

"  'You're  wonderful'."  He  was  close  to  her,  he  spoke 
low.  "  'I  don't  know — I  didn't  know  that  any  one  could 
be  so—'  " 

"  'Oh,  I'm  not !  You  can't  really — I  mean  you  don't 
know  me  at  all !' " 

"Her  arms  dropped,  she  wavered  before  him.  His  look 
of  utmost  conviction  shamed  her  words.  That  religious 
look  of  a  devotee,  it  was  absorbingly  new  to  her,  yet  not 
new,  she  had  in  some  sort  known  it.  It  was  terrible  that 
he  should  be  so  sure,  that  his  youth  should  do  this  to  him ; 
it  was  terrible,  and  great.  That  strong  eagerness  of  his 
mouth,  his  eyes  so  darkly  lit,  his  boyish  candor,  all  his 
unknowing  boldness  .  .  .  she  could  have  dropped  at 
his  feet  and  humbled  herself  to  him  forever.  No  other 
way  but  to  hold  fast  by  that  tenderness  and  passion.  He 
could  subdue  her,  this  boy  who  seemed  to  be  at  her  will. 

"  'I  want  you !'  "  he  whispered.    "  'You  can't  tell  how 
much — I  must — '  " 


LOUIS  WILKINSON  139 


u  n 


'But  what  ?'  "    She  held  out  her  hands,  and  he  caught 
them,  burning  her  through. 

"  'It's  not  like  anything  I've  ever — it's  because — Oh, 
I — I  love  you  !   May  I  say  that,  do  you  mind  ?  do  you  ?'  " 

"Her  mouth  shook,  she  waited  for  him  to  say  it  again. 

"'May  I  kiss  you?'" 

"The  girl  of  twenty-six  was  wholly  taken  by  that 
question  which  no  one  but  a  novice  can  ever  ask.  The 
contrast  of  his  diffidence  and  humility  and  restraint  with 
the  overpowering  and  momentous  compulsion  that  drove 
from  him,  so  sure  in  his  mouth  and  eyes,  confirmed  her 
his.  She  did  not  answer,  she  looked  hard,  then  she  kissed 
him,  and  stayed." 

No  one  living,  it  seems  to  me,  except  Louis  Wilkinson, 
could  have  written  this  page,  and  it  is  better  than  any- 
thing he  has  done  so  far.  It  ranks  to  me  with  that  short- 
story  of  Galsworthy's,  "The  Apple  Tree,"  which  I  have 
praised  in  and  out  of  season.  It  is  as  fine  even  as  Gals- 
worthy's and,  if  anything,  better  realized,  and  more  in- 
timate, though  not  so  well  expressed.  One  could  almost 
swear  it  was  a  personal  experience  of  Wilkinson's.  If 
he  had  deliberately  written  the  book  round  this  incident 
between  the  boy  and  the  woman  I  think  he  would  have 
made  the  book  a  classic.  As  it  is  I  am  not  straining  eulogy 
when  I  say  he  has  written  some  pages  that  anyone  might 
be  proud  to  sign. 

It  seems  to  me  everything  may  be  hoped  from  such  be- 
ginnings. Wilkinson  has  as  much  temperament  as  W.  L. 
George  and  knows  not  only  France  and  French  but  classic 


/ 


I40  CONTEMPORARY  PORTRAITS 

literature  as  well  and  America  to  boot.  His  roots  strike 
deep  and  are  'richly  nourished. 

He  has  kept  his  head  perfectly  throughout  the  war; 
without  making  himself  conspicuous  by  kicking  against 
the  pricks  he  has  yet  never  concealed  his  frank  opinion 
that  English  policy  was  at  least  as  selfish  and  sordid  as 
that  of  Germany  and  that  all  the  combatants  deserve  to 
lose  for  embarking  on  a  war  that  could  benefit  no  one. 
His  opinion  of  the  Peace  and  the  League  of  Nations  is 
not  flattering  either  to  Lloyd  George,  Clemenceau  or 
President  Wilson.  I  find  in  him  high  qualities  both  of 
intellect  and  character,  I  have  only  known  him  person- 
ally for  the  last  three  years  here  in  New  York;  but  to 
me  he  is  both  likeable  and  interesting.  In  person  very 
tall,  just  over  six  feet  I  should  think,  and  slight,  but 
giving  one  the  impression  of  wiry  strength.  His  manner 
is  that  of  the  student,  reflective  and  retiring  rather  than 
brisk  or  ready,  yet  he  talks  excellently  when  you  know 
him  and  has  neither  false  modesty  nor  undue  shyness. 

He  writes  me  that  he  has  accepted  a  position  offered 
to  him  in  England  and  is  not  likely  therefore  to  return 
to  these  States  for  some  years,  I  regard  that  as  a  piece 
of  good  fortune  for  him ;  the  scene  of  all  his  stories  is 
laid  in  England.  The  creative  artist  needs  a  special 
terroir;  it  is  not  good  for  him  to  become  too  cosmopol- 
itan; we  only  grow  to  be  masters  of  ordinary  life  and 
ordinary  men  and  women  by  living  much  with  them. 

I  expect  considerable  things  from  Wilkinson;  in  both 
"A  Chaste  Man"  and  "Brute  Gods"  the  story  is  not  at 
once  as  clear  as  I  think  it  should  be ;  it  dawns  on  you  after 


LOUIS  WILKINSON  141 

a  while  and  becomes  plain  enough ;  but  one  is  a  little  per- 
plexed and  irritated  just  at  first  and  this  is  a  fault  to  be 
shunned,  not  repeated.  I  want  his  next  story  to  begin 
as  simply  and  persuasively  as  "The  Cloister  and  the 
Hearth,"  or  "Le  Cure  de  Tours"  and  then  I  shall  settle 
myself  down  for  an  hour's  pure  enjoyment.  Wilkinson 
has  the  heart  of  the  matter  in  him  I  am  persuaded  and  so 
I  bid  him  gird  up  his  loins  and  give  us  bis  very  best. 


W.  L.  George 


W.  L.  GEORGE 

THE  first  time  I  met  W.  L.  George  was  some  ten 
years  ago  at  an  an  artistic  "At  Home"  in  Chel- 
sea. He  made  a  pleasant  impression ;  a  strong, 
well  set-up  figure,  some  five  feet  nine  or  ten  in  height, 
with  dark  handsome  face ;  a  courteous  mannr  with  a  sus- 
picion of  self-assurance  that  announced  to  me  the  coming 
generation.  Just  as  we  of  the  Fifties  met  the  Brown- 
ings and  Arnolds  of  the  Twenties  and  Thirties,  so  now 
the  young  men  born  in  the  Eighties  came  to  dispute  with 
u^  the  pride  of  place.  George  met  me  on  even  footing, 
He  wais  willing  enough  to  listen,  but  I  soon  had  occasion 
to  remark  that  he  knew  French  thoroughly  and  spoke  it 
like  a  native.  His  book  on  "France  in  the  Twentieth 
Century"  had  not  impressed  me  deeply.  It  was  good 
honest  journeyman's  work  far  ahead  of  average  British 
opinion  in  knowledge,  but  not  subtle  or  imaginative  or 
complete ;  the  heights  in  French  life  unexplored ;  he  never 
mentioned  Descartes  or  Pascal,  Vauvenargues  or  Ver- 
laine;  his  outlook  was  that  of  a  journalist  rather  than 
that  of  a  thinker  or  poet,  and  because  of  this  feeling  of 
mine  that  he  lived  on  the  surface  I  was  inclined  to  resent 
a  little  his  self-confidence.  Suddenly  I  was  asked  by 
some  one  to  notice  that  Mrs.  George  was  smoking  a  pipe 
or  it  may  have  been  a  cigar.  In  any  case  attention  was 
drawn  to  the  couple  rather  by  force  than  by  charm. 
A  year  or  so  afterwards  the  town  was  startled  by  "A 
143 


144  CONTEMPORARY  PORTRAITS 

Bed  of  Roses."  The  thesis,  if  I  remember  it  rightly,  was 
that  a  woman  might  find  a  "gay"  life  more  amusing  and 
more  lucrative  than  a  humdrum  existence.  But  there 
were  moments  in  the  novel  of  soul-analysis  sufficient  to 
redeem  a  worse  subject,  and  one  had  to  admit  that  George 
had  studied  or  absorbed  certain  types  of  women  with  rare 
insight.  He  was  not  as  successful  in  his  portraits  of 
men,  but  on  the  whole  one  felt  that  a  new  novelist  had 
made  a  successful  first  appearance. 

I  am  not  sure  that  his  later  books  have  bettered  his 
position  greatly.  "The  Second  Blooming"  seems  to  me 
the  best  of  them,  and  indeed  the  story  of  the  wife's 
seduction,  which  is  the  theme  of  that  book,  is  excellently 
managed,  while  the  subsequent  love-passages  and  the 
final  breaking-off  are  all  realistically  realized  and  ren- 
dered with  French  fairness.  But  there  is  nothing  in  the 
book  that  takes  the  breath  like  the  love-idyll  in  Richard 
Feverel.  There  is  no  charm  in  it  to  be  compared  to 
the  charm  of  Galsworthy's  little  story  entitled  "The 
Apple  Tree."  George  gives  us  a  picture  of  love  and 
passion,  but  nowhere  ecstacy  or  the  magic  of  lyric  vision. 

"Blind  Alley"  is  another  love  story  which  this  time 
comes  to  nothing,  and  is  therefore  not  so  interesting  as 
"The  Second  Blooming."  Nor  is  the  feminine  psychology 
of  the,  book  quite  so  deep;  the  scalpel  is  not  used  so 
boldly;  the  nerves  are  not  laid  bare  so  dexterously. 

Of  all  George's  books  "The  Making  of  an  English- 
man" or  "The  Little  Beloved,"  as  it  is  entitled  by  Little, 
Brown  &  Co.  of  Boston,  the  American  publishers,  is  the 
one  that  throws  most  light  on  the  author's  mentality  and 


W.  L.  GEORGE  HS 

temperament.  It  is  the  story  of  a  young  Frenchman  who 
comes  to  London  and  goes  into  business  to  make  a 
fortune.  But  we  are  told  little  of  his  adventures  in  the 
city  and  much  about  his  landlady's  two  daughters,  and 
especially  about  the  eldest  daughter  Maud,  who  is  quite 
willing  to  kiss  and  flirt  with  the  young  Frenchman,  but 
will  not  go  any  further  unless  he's  minded  to  marry. 

Maud  is  a  really  brilliant  study  of  a  sound-hearted, 
self-interested  girl  of  the  lower  middle  class  of  Cockaigne 
who  is  perfectly  well  able  to  take  care  of  herself  in  any 
circumstances.  Maud  evades  the  attack  and  the  young 
Frenchman  is  bitterly  disappointed,  but  he  turns  at  once 
to  a  daughter  of  his  employer,  "Edith"  who  shows  him 
another  side  of  English  character. 

Edith  is  a  girl  of  the  better  class,  romantic,  affec- 
tionate and  very  pretty,  and  the  Frenchman  falls  in  love 
with  her  bit  by  bit,  for  like  most  Frenchman,  and  most 
young  men  for  that  matter,  he  is  "in  love  with  love," 
and  on  the  quest  of  it  perpetually. 

These  two  studies  of  contrasted  English  types,  Maud 
and  Edith,  are  as  good  as  anything  George  has  done  or 
indeed  seems  likely  to  do. 

George's  political  views  strike  one  as  rather  shallow. 
He  has  interspersed  them  through  the  love  story  and 
they  come  rather  to  irritate  us  like  thin  editorials,  and 
yet  they  are  fair-minded  enough  in  a  certain  way. 

He  tells  us  on  one  page  that  the  cry  of  Home  Rule 
arouses  "troublesome  memories"  in  him,  and  that  "the 
English  tricks  in  Egypt,  South  Africa  and  Ireland  annoy 
him.'     He  tries  hard    to  be  liberal  without  any  deep 


146  CONTEMPORARY   PORTRAITS 

comprehension  of  the  struggle  going  on  underneath  the 
surface  betrween  the  Haves  and  the  Have-Nots,  which 
is,  as  Goethe  saw  a  hundred  years  ago,  the  real,  the  vital 
problem  of  the  modern  world. 

George's  views  on  politics  are  nothing  like  so  inter- 
esting as  his  views  of  women.  He  is  by  nature  a  lover. 
He  has  studied  love  from  the  man's  point  of  view  with 
passionate  earnestness,  and  so  every  now  and  then  has 
caught  glimpses  of  the  woman's  view  of  the  matter, 
glimpses  and  gleams  which  light  up  his  pages.  The  story 
of  his  bethrothal  to  Edith  and  her  father's  opinion  of  the 
matter,  and  his  final  success  complete  "The  Making  of  an 
Englishman,"  and  the  whole  book  is,  as  I  have  said,  ex- 
tremely interesting. 

Whether  George  will  ever  write  a  masterpiece  or  not, 
would  be  very  difficult  indeed  to  determine.  He  has  it 
in  him  to  write  a  great  love  story,  but  he  must  take,  I 
think,  time  for  it  and  give  his  real  knowledge  of  man's 
and  woman's  passions  generous  opportunities.  All  one 
can  say  at  the  moment  is  that  he  has  the  root  of  the 
matter  in  him.  He  feels  passionately,  writes  excellently 
and  is  not  afraid  to  say  what  he  feels.  One  must  simply 
hope  for  the  best  and  wait. 

Scattered  up  and  down  his  books  are  phrases  which 
stick  in  the  memory.  "There  is  no  place  like  home,"  he 
says,  and  then  adds,  "which  is  one  comfort."  He  paints 
a  bishop  pleading  for  national  organization  and  discipline 
by  suggesting  that  the  bishop  means  to  do  the  orgaa- 
ization  while  the  rest  of  the  world  will  come  in  for  the 


W.  L.  GEORGE  I47 

discipline.    And  finally  he  sums  up  his  own  creed,  the 
last  sentence  of  which  is  almost  a  proof  of  genius : 

"Work  sixteen  hours  a  day.  During  the  other  eight 
dream  of  your  work.  Check  your  references  three  times ; 
then  get  somebody  to  check  them  again.  Collect  all  the 
facts  you  can;  then  realize  there  are  some  you  don't 
know.  Acquire  strong  convictions ;  then  doubt  them.  In 
other  words,  keep  your  mind  fluid,  so  that  always  it  may 
be  fit  to  flow  into  the  most  obscure  crannies  of  human 
singularity." 

An  excellent  program:  but  you  can  only  keep  your 
mind  "fluid"  by  cultivating  your  sympathies.  It  is  by 
the  heart  we  grow,  and  all  our  deepest  thoughts  come 
from  the  heart. 

George  is  about  forty  with  an  established  reputation 
and  a  lazy,  carefree  life  assured  with  even  four  hours' 
work  a  day.  What  will  he  do?  His  French  education 
and  training  gave  him  a  splendid  start  and  he  used  it  to 
the  uttermost;  but  now?  Has  he  laid  broad  bases  for 
eternity?    Who  shall  say? 

After  forty  with  reputation  made  we  are  not  apt  to 
learn  much.  Is  George  growing?  I  don't  know.  His  scat- 
tered remarks  on  the  war  have  been  much  more  central, 
less  provincial  I  mean,  than  those  of  Wells  and  Bennett ; 
his  French  training  saved  him  from  the  worst  extra- 
vagances; but  something  more  is  needed  for  enduring 
fame.  A  great  mental  effort  or  a  great  passion,  or  a 
supreme  self-sacrifice — many  are  the  ways ;  but  daemonic 
power  is  the  first  requirement  of  that  I  see  no  trace. 


Henri  Gaudier-Brzeska 


GAUDIER-BRZESKA 

WE  are  living  in  a  rebirth  of  religion  and  of  art, 
comparable  only  to  the  Reformation  and  the 
Renaissance  of  art  in  the  sixteenth  century. 
But  in  the  upheaval  of  three  centuries  ago,  thought  led 
the  way  and  art  followed  after,  whereas  now  the  spring 
of  art  is  passing  into .  high  summer,  wthile  the  new 
thought  is  putting  timidly  forth  the  first  bourgeonings. 
It  is  difficult  to  fix  exactly  the  beginnings  of  great  move- 
ments. Nine  out  of  ten  observers  would  give  the  credit 
of  this  rebirth  of  art  to  France  and  trace  the  growfh 
through  Delacroix,  to  the  Barbizon  school  and  so  to 
Cezanne,  the  epoch-making  initiator  who  was  followed 
by  Picasso,  Gaudier-Brzeska,  Epstein,  Wyndham  Lewis 
and  the  rest.  Just  as  the  first  renaissance  was  caused 
by  the  fall  of  Constamtinople  and  the  consequent  influx 
of  learned  Greeks  into  Italy  who  brought  with  them 
Greek  letters  and  models  of  Greek  sculpture,  so  this 
modern  renaissance  was  caused,  or  at  least  quickened 
by  fhe  discovery  of  the  paintings  and  pottery  of  China 
and  the  prints  and  pictures  of  the  Japanese,  by  Indian 
and  Persian  miniatures  too,  and  sculptures  from  all 
parts  of  the  world  and  of  all  times.  The  Goncourts  in 
France  and  Whistler  in  England  were  among  the  first 
to  assimilate  some  of  these  new  influences.  They  were 
the  first  to  teach  that  every  art  had  its  own  domain,  its 
own  laws,  its  own  home  in  the  spirit,  the  first  to  reject 

149 


ISO  CONTEMPORARY  PORTRAITS 

the  influence  of  literature  on  painting,  or  of  the  pictorial 
art  on  the  literary  art ;  the  first  to  question  Shakespeare's 
statement  that  art  was  there  "to  hold  the  mirror  up  to 
nature."  They  des^pised  the  mere  representation  of  the 
actual  and  demanded  an  interpretation;  some  even  at- 
tempted as  the  old  Chinese  sage  advised  to  leave  reality 
altogether,  in  order  more  freely  to  suggest  "the  rhythm 
of  things." 

The  mark  of  the  new  movement  is  boldness  and  sin- 
cerity. Picasso  is  not  afraid  to  recall  the  austerity  and 
menace  of  a  Spanish  hilltown  by  a  series  of  cubes  posed 
one  above  the  other  as  roof  on  roof,  and  his  superb  suc- 
cess gave  a  name  to  the  new  departure  and  induced  others 
to  try  to  evoke  the  soft  curves  of  feminine  beauty  by 
cubes  and  parallelograms  of  rectangular  harshness. 
But  the  successes  grew  more  and  more  numerous;  Gau- 
guin's picture  of  Christ  in  Gethsemane  was  declared  to 
be  a  masterpiece  by  the  masters,  w*hile  the  so-called 
critics  denounced  it  as  a  blasphemy  or  an  absurdity.  The 
Garden  was  a  rough  incult  olive  wood  with  carious  soil 
sparsely  covered  with  bunches  of  coarse  grass;  here  on 
a  bank  the  Teacher  sits  who  could  not  let  ill  alone;  his 
head  bowed  in  utter  dejection;  the  face  livid  with  despair 
and  apprehension  and  against  the  graygreen  skin  a  hemi- 
sphere of  scarlet  hair — and  this  flaming  color,  never  seen 
on  human  head  before,  suggests  the  supernatural,  is  in 
itself  an  evocation  of  the  ineffable  that  lifts  this  tragedy 
above  all  others  in  recorded  time. 

Here  is  a  woman's  figure  by  Matisse;  a  few  bold 
curves,  the  utmost  simplification  of  line  and  yet  the  soft 


GAUDIER-BRZESKA  151 

warmth  and  weight  of  the  flesh  is  on  our  fingers  with 
a  magic  of  suggestion  that  no  Venus,  whether  of  Cnidos 
or  of  Paris,  ever  before  called  forth.  Matisse,  we  know, 
was  a  masterdraughtsman  or  he  could  not  thus  seize  on 
the  essential,  omitting  everything  else. 

Curiously  enough  this  simplification  of  means  and  sin- 
cerity of  feeling  alike  led  the  artist  to  primitive  schools 
of  design  and  modeling.  We  had  all  passed  in  the  Brit- 
ish Museum  from  the  Parthenon  sculptures  to  the  As- 
syrian and  from  the  recognized  schools  to  ignored  or  un- 
noted efforts  of  so-called  savages.  There  are  sculptures 
from  Gambogia  in  the  Trocadero  in  Paris  as  magnificent 
in  their  own  way  as  the  greatest  Chinese  paintings. 

These  things  were  in  my  mind  when  one  afternoon  I 
was  introduced  in  a  friend's  room  to  a  young  man,  Gau- 
dier-Brzeska.  I  was  struck  at  once  by  Gaudier's  sharp 
thin  profile  and  his  quick  incisive  way  of  speaking.  He 
was  below  rather  than  above  medium  height;  slight  but 
strong;  he  had  a  little  down  curling  carelessly  about  his 
chin  and  this  with  his  bold  out-jutting  nose  and  keen 
round  brown  eyes  gave  him  an  old-world  appearance. 
He  looked  like  a  young  Italian  artist  of  the  Renaissance 
and  I  soon  found  he  had  all  the  true  artist's  enthusiasm. 
I  took  a  great  fancy  to  him  because  of  the  outspoken 
frankness  of  his  criticism  and  asked  him  to  call.  He 
promised  to,  but  a  couple  of  days  later  I  meit  him  again. 
I  happened  to  be  in  the  British  Museum  looking  about 
among  the  cases  containing  the  idols  and  art-products 
of  the  South  Sea  islanders;  suddenly  Gaudier-Brzeska 
appeared  and  pointing  to  a  figurine  a  sp>an  long  said; 


152  CONTEMPORARY  PORTRAITS 

"Gaudy,  isn't  it?  More  wonderful  than  the  sisters  of 
Pheidias." 

"What  are  you  doing  here?"  I  cried. 

"I  often  come  here,"  he  answered  with  that  peculiar 
mixture  of  shyness  and  of  self-assertion  which  was  a 
note  of  him;  "there  are  masterpieces  here  of  all  sorts; 
look  at  that  and  that!  The  splendor  of  them!"  His 
English  was  always  more  expressive  than  correct. 

I  nodded ;  "I  wish  I  could  handle  them,"  he  added. 

"Come  downstairs,"  he  burst  out,  "where  they  keep 
the  early  Assyrian  things — statues  finer  far  than  any  of 
Greece." 

The  haste,  the  passionate  exaggeration,  the  staccato 
utterance,  were  characteristic  of  his  youth,  I  thought; 
surely  the  frankest,  sincerest,  most  assured  nature  I  have 
ever  met. 

I  went  with  him  and  on  the  way,  "Why  do  you  run 
down  the  Greeks?"  I  asked,  "Rodin  declares  that  they 
were  the  master  artists  of  the  world." 

Guadier  pursed  out  his  lips  in  contempt  and  shrugged 
his  shoulders: 

"What  do  I  care?    Rodin  is  one  man,  I  am  another." 

"I  have  always  thought  the  Greeks  very  young,"  I 
continued,  "satisfied  with  the  sensuous  apipeal  in  the 
bteautiful  naked  form  of  man  and  woman." 

"That's  it,"  he  cried;  "or  part  of  it;  they  never  ex- 
pressed anything  but  sex,  but  here  you're  got  my  As- 
syrian who  expresses  spiritual  qualities  and  characters 
with  an  extraordinary  simplicity  of  means." 


GAUDIER-BRZESKA  153 

I  have  always  thougtht  his  own  bust  of  Ezra  Pound 
was  the  creative  equivalent  of  his  critical  appreciation  of 
the  great  Primitives.  At  any  rate,  it  is  the  best  symbol 
I  can  recall  of  Gaudier's  meaning.  He  was  never  tired 
of  directing  attention  to  the  soft  outlines  of  the  early 
masters;  no  sharp  line;  no  black  shadow,  just  a  shade; 
every  outline  wavering  in  a  sort  of  haze  and  the  features 
simplified,  to  the  uttermost,  only  indicated  indeed,  yet 
infinitely  suggestive. 

His  method  and  message  were  both  new  and  of  a  pas- 
sionate, searching  sincerity ;  again  and  again  he  tried  to 
define  his  position ;  "the  modern  sculptor  is  a  man  who 
works  with  instinct  as  his  inspiring  force.  His  work  is 
emotional.  What  he  feels,  he  feels  intensely;  and  his 
work  is  the  absitraction  of  this  intense  feeling." 

The  creative  artist  is  usually  concrete,  all  in  images 
and  pictures;  but  here  was  one  seeking  to  give  form  to 
abstractions. 

I  began  to  realize  that  young  Brzeska  'had  something 
definite  and  new  to  express,  though  words  and  especially 
English  words  were  evidently  not  his  medium.  Talking 
with  me  he  usually  lapsed  into  French ;  but  even  there  'he 
found  it  hard  to  render  his  abstract  thought. 

The  first  thing  that  impressed  me  in  Gaudier  was  his 
speed,  an  unearthly  quickness  of  perception  and  reaction. 
He  was  a  sort  of  shy,  wild,  faun-like  creature  all  in  ex- 
clamations and  interjections,  this  moment  in  passionate 
enthusiasm,  oftener  in  passionate  contempt.  But  always 
astoundingly  intelligent,  always  intensely  alive  and  eager, 
tireless,  indeed,  in  his  intellectual  demands.     He  aston- 


-tw?* 


The  Horse 

Progressive  studies  in  the  relation  of  masses 

By  Henri  Gaudier-Brzeska 


GAURIER-BRZESKA  155 

ished  me  once  b'y  his  knowledge  of  German.  "Where  did 
you  learn  it  ?"    I  asked. 

"In  Munich,"  he  replied;  "I  went  there  from  Bris- 
tol." At  fourteen,  it  appeared,  he  had  won  a  traveling 
scholarship  in  his  native  France  w*hich  gave  him  two  years 
in  a  college  in  Bristol  and  in  Bristol  he  won  a  scholar- 
ship that  took  him  to  Munich. 

"How  did  you  live  there?"  I  queried. 

"By  drawing  Rembrandt  heads  of  Jews,"  he  grinned, 
"another  man  used  to  paint  them  and  then  a  third  would 
tone  the  papier  with  tea  extract  till  our  Rembrandt  was 
good  enough  to  sign  and  sell  in  America,"  and  he  laughed 
impishly. 

After  knowing  him  a  month  or  so,  I  went  with  him 
to  'his  studio  in  Putney ;  it  was  one  bare  room  of  a  dozen 
side  by  side. 

"Whistler  once  worked  here  somewhere,"  I  remarked. 

"It's  no  worse  for  that,"  retorted  Gaudier  and  we  both 
laughed  at  the  cheeky  retort. 

The  first  five  minutes  spent  in  his  studio  convinced  me 
of  Gaudier's  genius.  There  were  drawings  on  the  walls 
of  torsos ;  a  picture  of  a  wicker-basket  full  of  apples,  as 
as  good  as  any  still-life  of  Cezanne  or  Picasso,  and 
done  in  the  same  flat  colors  without  shading.  In  spite 
of  my  poverty  I  bought  it  on  the  spot.  Everywhere 
there  were  curious  modelings  in  clay,  carvings  in  stone; 
notably  a  high-relief  of  two  men  side  b"y  side  gazing 
with  greedy  long  eyes  at  a  seated  girl.  Like  most  of 
his  sculptures,  this  was  colored  and  had  a  sort  of  sen- 
sual heat  in  it  strangely  impressive. 


156  CONTEMPORARY   PORTRAITS 

The  mark  of  the  youth  was  always  intelligence,  incisive 
self-assuraHce,  and  modernity  of  interest  and  view.  He 
knew  a  good  deal  of  modern  French  poetry  by  heart ;  but 
I  never  heard  him  quote  anyone  earlier  than  Baudelaire 
except  Villon;  indeed,  Villon  and  Verlaine,  Bruand  and 
Jehan  Rictus  were  his  favorites.  He  knew  a  verse  or 
two  of  Goethe,  half  a  dozen  or  so  of  Heine  and  he  be- 
lieved or  pretended  to  believe  that  was  all  that  could  be 
found  in  German. 

His  self-confidence  provoked  me  once  to  try  to  "draw" 
him,  in  order  to  define  his  limitations;  but  his  sincerity 
and  intelligence  carried  him  over  the  test  triumphantly. 

"Why  on  earth  did  you  select  sculpture,"  I  asked, 
"which  is  one  of  the  simplest  of  the  arts,  instead  of  paint- 
ing, for  which  you  are  at  least  as  gifted,  or  poetry,  which 
is  the  highest  of  the  arts  because  the  most  complex  ?" 

"Poetry,"  he  barked.  "Pooh!  All  the  new  work  is 
being  done  by  the  sculptors  and  painters.  Where  have 
you  an  interpretation  in  poetry  ?  The  poets  are  all  work- 
ing just  as  their  forefathers  worked  five  centuries  ago; 
but  we  are  doing  new  stuff." 

"What  nonsense,"  I  exclaimed.  "A  century  before 
Cezanne,  William  Blake  did  the  best  impressionist  work 
ever  seen." 

"Blake?"  he  asked,  evidently  not  knowing  even  the 
name. 

"William  Blake,"  I  replied,  "who  did  an  impressionist 
landscape  of  evening  before  any  of  the  modern  painters 
were  heard  of.  About  1775  at  the  age  of  sixteen  he 
wrote : 


GAUDIER-BRZESKA  i57 

The  night  wind  sleeps  upon  the  lake, 
Come  Silence  with  thy  glimmering  eyes  and  wash 
The  dusk  with  silver. 
And  what  do    you    think   of    his    famous    'Tiger,'    the 
greatest  of  lyrics,  I  think ;  at  least  the  most  epochmaking 
and  eventful  ever  written : 

Tiger,  Tiger,  burning  bright 
In  the  forests  of  the  night. 
What  immortal  hand  or  eye 
Framed  thy  dreadful  symmetry? 
No  representation,  here :  no  description ;  nothing  but  the 
imaginative  symbol :  you  remember  ?" 

"No,  no !"  he  cried,  "I  never  heard  it  before ;  but  how 
magnificent!  Do  go  on,  please,"  and  I  was  forced  willy- 
nilly  to  recite  the  whole  poem. 

"Good  God,"  he  exclaimed  when  I  had  finished,  "who 
would  have  believed  that  an  Englishman  could  have  got 
there  in  the  eighteenth  century?  It's  simply  incredible. 
Did  he  do  anything  more  of  that  class  ?" 

"Sure,"  I  replied,  "and  higher  stuff  still ;  he  was  of  the 
prophet-seers  worthy  to  stand  with  the  greatest,  with 
Shakespeare  and  Jesus." 

The  name  served  to  excite  him.  "Jesus,"  he  burst  out, 
"was  contre  le  nationalisme ;  thaft  was  all  He  did.  His 
only  title  to  honor." 

"Whew!"  I  whistled.  "Your  creative  work  is  better 
than  your  criticism,  my  young  friend,  or  I  wouldn't  waste 
my  time  with  you.  You  are  to  be  forgiven,  though; 
you  only  deny  the  Blakes  and  the  Christs  because  you 
don't  know  them." 


158  CONTEMPORARY  PORTRAITS 

"Lend  me  Blake?"  he  asked  shyly. 

"Of  course,  with  pleasure,'  I  replied,  "it  is  more  yours 
than  mine  as  you  want  it  more,"  and  I  handed  him  a 
volume. 

Henri  Gaudier  was  perfectly  simple  and  frank  on  all 


Deer 
(Pen  Drawing) 
'  By  Henri  Gaudier-Brzeska 

occasions;  met  prince  and  peasant  on  the  same  even 
footing;  was  careless  of  dress  and  appearance;  would 
fill  his  pockets  with  carvings  and  carry  a  heavy  piece  of 
marble  slung  over  his  shoulder  down  Piccadilly  in  the 
afternoon  without  being  in  the  slightest  self-conscious. 
In  other  words,  he  had  no  vanity. 
Leaving  his  studio  after  that  first  visit,  I  thought  of 


GAUDIER-BRZESKA  1 59 

him  as  a  most  characteristic  product  of  our  time;  an 
artist  of  our  renasissance.  He  was  very  proud;  though 
always  hard  up,  often  too  poor  to  buy  marble  except  in 
scraps,  he  never  asked  for  loans  or  favors. 

When  I  first  knew  him,  he  told  me  he  had  a  clerkship 
in  the  city  which  gave  him  and  his  sister  a  bare  liveli- 
hood; but  as  soon  as  he  got  to  know  a  few  people  and 
had  sold  half  a  dozen  pieces  of  sculpture  he  threw  up 
the  clerkship  and  tried  to  live  on  his  earnings  as  an  artist, 
he  eould  live  easily,  he  said,  on  a  couple  of  pounds  a  week 
and  when  I  knew  he  was  getting  more  than  that  I  dis- 
missed the  matter  from  my  mind  ais  settled  satisfactorily. 

But  one  day  shortly  before  I  came  to  grief  myself  I 
realized  that  he  was  in  difficulties.  He  declared  that  a 
bookseller  to  whom  he  had  intrusted  some  of  his  sculp- 
tures was  cheating  him  :  "He  laughs  aind  laughs,"  he  said, 
"and  sticks  to  all  the  money  he  gets  from  selling  my 
works,  and  I  can  hardly  live.  I  must  get  back  to  France. 
I  left  it  because  I  didn't  want  to'  waste  time  serving  in  the 
army.  If  it  were  not  for  that,  I'd  go  back  to-morrow. 
It's  easier  for  an  artist  to  live  in  France  .  .  .  Paris,"  he 
added  with  a  sort  of  passionate  longing. 

I  could  not  but  admit  that  he  was  right. 

Six  months  later  the  war  broke  out  and  after  some 
natural  hesitations  he  returned  to  France,  was  promptly 
arrested  for  having  evaded  service  and  was  imprisoned. 
He  broke  gaol  at  Calais  within  a  few  hours  and  managed 
to  return  to  London.  But  the  call  was  in  his  blood  and 
his  fate  was  upon  him.  He  went  to  his  Embassy,  worn 
Paul  Cambon's  good  word  and  returned  to  France  to  be 


i6o  CONTEMPORARY  PORTRAITS 

enrolled  promptly.  In  due  time  he  was  sent  to  the  front. 
He  bore  all  the  hardships  of  life  in  the  trenches  with 
smiling  good  humor,  took  the  rough  with  the  smooth, 
and  in  six  months  was  made  a  corporal.  Again  and  again 
he  declared  that  he  would  survive  the  war  he  was  "ab- 
solutely sure,"  but  it  was  youth  and  the  spring  of  blood 
in  him  that  spoke;  he  was  shot  through  the  forehead  in 
a  charge  at  Neuville  St.  Vaast,  June  5,  1915,  after  two 
promotions  for  gallantry. 

Mr.  Ezra  Pound,  the  poet,  tells  the  truth  about  the 
catastrophe  when  he  says  that  the  killing  of  Gaudier- 
Brzeska  was  a  greater  loss  to  humanity  than  the  de- 
struction of  the  cathedral  at  Rheims.  The  great  church 
was  known  and  had  been  assimilated  by  thousands ;  what 
Gaudier  had  in  him  to  give,  no  one  now  can  ever  know ; 
but  speaking  for  myself,  I  must  say  that  I  expected 
greater  things  from  him  than  from  any  young  man  I  have 
ever  met. 

Let  me  give  now  a  few  extracts  from  his  letters  at  the 
front  just  to  give  an  idea  of  the  boyish  good-humor  and 
manliness  that  distinguished  this  rare  artist. 

"The  beastly  regiment  which  was  here  before  us  re- 
mained three  months,  and  as  they  were  all  dirty  northern 
miners  used  to  all  kind  of  dampness,  they  never  did  an 
effort  to  better  the  place  up  a  bit.  When  we  took  the 
trenches  after  the  march  it  was  a  sight  worthy  of  Dante ; 
there  was  at  the  bottom  a  foot  deep  of  liquid  mud  in 
which  we  had  to  stand  two  days  and  two  nights,  rest 
we  had  in  small  holes  nearly  as  muddy,  add  to  this  a 
position  making  a  V  point  into  the  enemy  who  shells 


OAUDIER-BRZESKA  i6i 

us  from  three  sides,  the  close  vicinity  of  800  putrefying 
German  corpses,  and  you  are  at  the  front  in  the  marshes 
of  the  Aisne 

"Our  woods  are  magnificent.  I  am  just  now  quartered 
in  trenches  in  the  middle  of  them,  they  are  covered  with 
lily  of  the  valley,  it  grows  and  flowers  on  the  trench  it- 
self. In  the  night  we  have  many  nightingales  to  keep  us 
company.  They  sing  very  finely  and  the  loud  noise  of 
the  usual  attacks  and  counterattacks  does  not  disturb 
them  in  the  least. 

"It  is  very  warm  and  nice  out  of  doors,  one  does  not 
mind  sleeping  out  on  the  ground  now." 

And  the  combative  stuff  with  the  magfnificent  summing 
up  as  noble  as  a  judgement  of  Goethe. 

"We  give  them  nice  gas  to  breathe  when  the  wind  is 
for  us.  I  have  magnificent  little  bombs,  they  are  as  big 
as  an  ostrich  egg,  they  smell  of  ripe  apples,  but  when 
they  burst  your  eyes  weep  until  you  can't  see,  you  are 
suffocated,  and  if  the  boche  wants  to  save  his  skin  he  has 
to  scoot.  Then  a  good  little  bullet  puts  an  end  to  his 
misery.  This  is  not  war,  but  a  murderer  hunt,  we  have 
to  bring  these  rascals  out  of  their  holes,  we  do  it  and 
kill  them  remorselessly  when  they  do  not  surrender. 

"To-day  is  magnificent,  a  fresh  wind,  clear  sun  and 
larks  singing  cheerfully.  The  shells  do  not  disturb  the 
songsters.  In  the  Champagne  woods  the  nightingales 
took  no  notice  of  the  fight  either.  They  solemnly  pro- 
claim man's  foolery  and  sacrilege  of  nature.  I  respect 
their  disdain." 


i62'  CONTEMPORARY  PORTRAITS 

The  best  collection  of  Brzeska's  works  is  owned  by  Mr. 
John  Quinn,  the  famous  New  York  lawyer.  Mr.  Pound 
in  his  delightful  book  gives  us  part  of  the  letter  which 
Mr.  Quinn  wrote  on  hearing  of  poor  Gaudier's  death : 

"Now  here  is  the  distressing  thing  to  me  personally. 
I  got  yours  of  April  i8th  on  May  loth.  It  was  mostly 
about  Brzeska's  work.  I  intended  to  write  and  send  you 
twenty  pounds  or  thirty  pounds,  and  say,  'Send  this  to 
him  and  say  it  can  go  on  account  of  whatever  you  select 
for  me.'  But  a  phrase  of  yours  stuck  in  my  mind,  that 
when  he  came  back  from  the  trenches  he  would  be  hard 
up.  Poor  brave  fellow.  There  is  only  the  memory  now 
of  a  brave  gifted  man.    What  I  can  do  I  will  do." 

I  quote  this  because  Mr.  Quinn  is  one  of  the  few  col- 
lectors who  realize  that  if  a  man  buys  the  work  of  artists 
who  need  money  to  go  on  with,  he  in  some  measure 
shares  in  the  creation.  He  gives  the  man  leisure  for 
work. 

Taken  all  in  all  Gaudier  was  the  largest  and  best?  en- 
dowed artist  I  have  known.  As  resolute  and  brave  as  a 
born  man  of  action,  proud  and  self-reliant  too  and  yet 
artist  to  his  finger-tips,  as  gifted  for  painting  as  for 
sculpture  and  with  an  imperial  intelligence.  What  might 
he  not  have  done  ? — a  great  man,  superbly  endowed ! 

When  people  compare  him  with  Rodin  depreciatingly, 
I  get  angry.  Rodin  has  done  his  work  and  done  it  mag- 
nificently ;  but  Gaudier  had  both  hands  full  of  new  gifts 
and  was  aflame  to  give  of  his  best — richer  gifts,  I  verily 
believe,  than  any  sculptor  since  Angelo,  and  there  is  some 
justification  for  my  faith ;  here  and  there  a  cut  stone  of 


GAUDIET  BRZESKA  163 

supreme  excellence,  as  beautiful  as  a  Shakespeare  sonnet, 
but,  alas,  Gaudier  died  at  twenty-four,  his  splendid 
promise  half-fulfilled !  For  me  he  stands  at  the  head  of 
all  the  millions  of  brave  men  who  have  perished  untimely 
in  this  dreadful  war;  I  can  still  see  the  eager  face  and 
lamping  eyes  and  hear  the  quick  stabbing  exclamations — 
ah,  the  pity  of  it,  the  pity  of  it !  the  untimely  shrouding 
of  that  victorious  intelligence! 


k 


Lord  St.  Aldwyn 


EARL  ST.  ALDWYN 

IT  was  in  1887,  I  believe,  that  I  first  made  the  ac- 
quaintance of  Sir  Michael  Hicks-Beach;  at  any  rate 
it  was  just  after  he  had  resigned  his  position  as  Chief 
Secretary  for  Ireland.  It  was  said  that  a  serious  affection 
of  his  eyes  had  forced  him  to  give  up  all  work.  But  that 
was  regarded  as  a  convenient  pretext  to  cover  failure 
and  defeat. 

The  whole  position  throws  such  light  on  British  politics 
and  on  the  character  of  a  great  man  who  has  been  per- 
sistently misunderstood  and  underrated  that  now  Michael 
Hicks-Beach  is  dead,  I  may  be  forgiven  for  sketching  it 
summarily. 

It  was  his  amendment  to  the  Budget  that  had  brought 
about  the  defeat  of  Gladstone's  government  in  1885.  Al- 
ready in  1878  Hicks-Beaich  had  been  Secretary  for  the 
Colonies ;  later  he  had  startled  people  by  imperious  man- 
ners more  than  by  any  originality  of  view.  For  him  to 
accept  the  Chief  Secretaryship  and  risk  a  growing  fame 
in  Dublin — "That  grave  of  English  reputations"  was 
looked  upon  as  a  weakness — or  at  least  an  admission  that 
he  could  not  get  his  own  price  from  his  party.  His 
enemies  chuckled :  "An  eclipse,  .  .  .  the  finish." 

Some  of  us  who  rather  liked  what  we  had  seen  of  the 
man  held  our  breath ;  the  risk  was  appalling !  Why  had 
jhe  thrown' himself  into  the  abyss?    For  Ireland  was  at 

165 


1 66  CONTEMPORARY  PORTRAITS 

boiling  point :  Parnel/,  one  of  the  greatest  of  men  had 
drawn  the  sword  and  thrown  the  scabbard  away:  "No 
rent"  was  being  muttered  and  screamed  and  shouted 
from  Donegal  to  Cork :  English  landlordism  snarled  with 
bared  teeth  behind  its  lawfences :  a  dozen  able  men,  chief 
among  them  Tim  Healy,  were  attacking  night  after  night 
in  the  House  of  Commons  with  unrivalled  sarcasm  and 
passionate  contempt:  England,  obstinate,  glowering,  was 
set  against  all  rebels — yet  ominous  mutterings  were 
heard  that  Ulster  was  being  won  by  the  "no-rent"  bait, 
the  last  English  stronghold  disaffected:  anything  might 
happen. 

Into  the  caldron  plunged  Hicks-Beach,  a  tall,  dour, 
imperious  Englishman,  a  Conservative,  a  landlord  of  the 
narrowest  landlord  class,  a  country  gentleman — Eton  and 
Oxford:  nature,  traditions,  education — all  against  him, 
said  the  wise:  would  it  end  in  another  tragedy,  the  torch 
hiss  out  in  blood  as  it  had  gone  out  six  years  before  ?  We 
waited,  hardly  daring  to  hope. 

The  turmoil  in  Ireland  went  on  though  dulled  and 
damped,  we  thought :  the  Irish  leaders  hesitating,  watch- 
ing. Then  to  our  wonder,  The  Times  began  gravely  to 
warn  the  Chief  Secretary !  He  was  hesitant,  it  appeared, 
weak;  (we  grinned — that  was  not  his  failing!)  he  was 
adjured  to  act  boldly  against  the  lawbreakers,  the  rebels. 
Our  hearts  beat  high  again  with  hope.  The  other  English 
papers  began  to  copy  The  Times. '  The  Times  went  on  to 
scold  and  then  to  curse,  shriller  and  shriller,  day  after 
day,  while  the  cry  joined  in,  the  whole  pack,  now  their 
pockets  were  threatened,  squealing,  cursing,  threatening: 


LORD  ST.  ALDWYN  167 

the  London  Clubs  all  in  a  fury;  then  the  word — "Hicks- 
Beach,  the  traitor!" 

After  six  months,  the  issue  at  length ;  clear,  definite  for 
all  men  to  see  and  take  sides  according  to  the  God  or 
the  Devil  in  them!  Only  great  men  bring  about  such 
crises !  Lord  Clanricarde,  of  evil  fame,  the  worst  of  ab- 
sentee landlords,  wrote  to  7^he  Times  to  say  that  he  had 
called  upon  the  forces  of  the  Crown  to  protect  the  officers 
of  the  law  who  were  collecting  his  rents,  long  overdue. 

The  Chief  Secretary  had  replied  in  contempt  of  law: 
"I  refuse  absolutely  to  use  the  forces  of  the  Crown  to 
collect  Lord  Clanricarde's  debts."  Nothing  more,  no 
explanation,  even,  just  that,  signed  "Hicks-Beach." 

The  sensation  was  indescribable.  London  went  crazy. 
You  might  have  thought  a  piece  of  the  sky  had  fallen.  For 
the  second  time  in  its  record  of  over  a  century  The  Times 
devoted  two  leading  articles  in  one  morning  to  one  sub- 
ject. In  the  first  it  condemned  Hicks-Beach  root  and 
branch :  he  had  gone  outside  his  powers ;  he  was  one  of 
the  executive  appointed  to  carry  out  the  laws,  not  to  make 
laws  and  bring  in  anarchy :  his  intellect,  always  overrated 
by  himself,  must  be  temporarily  deranged.  In  the  second 
diatribe  it  was  shown  quietly  that  in  refusing  to  collect 
Clanricarde's  debts,  he  was  judging  and  sentencing  Lord 
Clanricarde  without  even  hearing  him;  in  the  present 
state  of  Ireland  he  was  going  further,  making  war  on 
all  credit,  on  property  itself — property,  the  corner-stone 
of  civilization,  property,  the  keystone  of  the  arch  that 
bridges  the  abyss  from  barbarism  to  a  state  of  order — 
trained  rhetoric  of  the  Devil's  advocates. 


i68  CONTEMPORARY  PORTRAITS 

The  Times  won  and  won  easily.  Even  the  London  Liberal 
papers  would  not  take  up  cudgels  for  a  Conservative  who 
had  done  what  they  did  not  dare  even  to  preach.  They  had 
condemned  the  Irish  for  refusing  to  pay  rent :  how  could 
they  applaud  this  English  Conservative  squire  who  re- 
fused to  collect  debts,  as  his  duty  bade  him  ?  The  Irish 
waited  and  watched  1 

Suddenly  the  news  was  published  that  Hicks-Beach's 
eyes  having  given  out  through  stress  of  work  he  had  re- 
signed and  returned  to  London  to  be  doctored.  The 
Times  was  not  even  jubilant  or  self-gratulatckry.  The 
outcome  was  the  only  possible  one:  "England  is  a  law- 
abiding  country."  The  Clubs,  every  one,  said  that  Hicks- 
Beach  was  ruined  and  would  never  be  heard  of  again, 
"He  should  go  back  to  his  country-place,  Coin  St.  Aldwyn 
and  grow  turnips." 

It  was  at  this  moment  I  met  him.  The  dinner  was 
given  by  the  celebrated  doctor,  Robson  Roosc,  and  in  his 
invitsrtion  he  told  me  that  Lord  Randolph  Churchill  was 
to  be  there  and  other  Cabinet  Ministers.  Would  I  please 
come  early,  he  wanted  to  introduce  me  to  Sir  Michael 
Hicks-Beach  ?  I  accepted  eagerly.  I  wanted  to  meet  and 
measure  the  man  who  had  acted  so  boldly,  so  foolishly,  so 
nobly.  Had  he  been  swayed  by  moral  or  by  intellectual 
motives  ? 

Robson  Roose  took  me  into  a  small  room  off  the  din- 
ing-room. Sir  Michael  Hicks-Beach  was  standing  at  the 
fireplace  with  his  back  to  us.  As  we  entered  and  Robson 
Roose  mentioned  his  name  he  turned  slowly.    He  had  a 


LORD  ST.  ALDWYN  169 

heavy  shade  over  his  eyes  and  looked  worn  and  thin,  I 
thought. 

"I  am  so  glad  to  meet  you,"  I  said  and  as  Robson  left 
the  room,  I  added,  "I  should  say  so  'proud'." 

"Really!"  he  said  in  a  tired  voice  ending  in  a  sound, 
half  sniff,  half  snort,  "not  many  persons  would  say 
that!" 

"You  didn't  act  hoping  for  the  applause  of  the  many." 

"Indeed,  no!"  he  cried.    "I  knew  better  than  that." 

"The  curious  thing  about  the  business  is,"  I  went  on, 
"that  you  acted  as  the  moral  conscience  of  the  English 
people  and  thus  settled  the  Irish  question.  Your  honesty 
and  courage  will  have  great  results — do  infinite  good." 

In  silence  he  turned  to  me  with  his  face  all  working  and 
held  out  his  hand.  In  a  moment  he  had  regained  control 
of  himself  though  the  tears  were  on  his  cheeks.  He 
took  out  his  handkerchief  and  wiped  them  away  openly. 
Then  in  a  half-voice : 

"Thank  you!  I  shall  always  remember  that.  That 
makes  me  proud.  That  was  what  I  said  to  myself.  One's 
conscience  the  only  compass-light  in  bad  weather,"  he 
added  smiling.  Sea-similes  came  naturally  even  to  the 
country  squire's  lips,  for  all  Englishmen  are  of  sailor- 
stock. 

"Of  course  you  knew  how  they  would  treat  you?'  I 
went  on. 

He  nodded :  "None  of  my  business" — curtly — "I  had 
to  show  'em  that  Engfand,  the  England  I  love,  did  not 
mean  to  go  on  doing  wrong.  I'm  glad,"  he  added,  "that 
you  think  it  will  have  a  good  effect  ultimately.    So  far. 


I70  CONTEMPORARY  PORTRAITS 

it  appears  to  have  had  no  consequences  except  to  throw 
me  out!"  he  added  bitterly. 

"Consequences  are  incalculable,"  I  said.  "The  act 
brought  me  to  you,  eager  to  help.  It  will  bring  dozens  of 
others,  as  Cromwell  used  to  say  'a  small  band  of  good 
men,'  standing  on  this  because  they  cannot  help  it — an 
invisible  cloud  of  witnesses !  You'll  come  back  trium- 
phant!" 

"Come  back,"  he  repeated,  resuming  a  conventional 
tone,  as  our  host  accompanied  by  others  entered  the  room, 
"I  must  first  go  away  to  Coin  and  get  cured.  A  tedious 
job,  I'm  afraid." 

Our  talk  was  ended.  At  the  dinner  he  hardly  spoke  at 
all.  As  soon  as  it  was  over,  he  took  Robson  Roose  into 
another  room  and  disappeared. 

We  met  the  next  time  in  the  inner  lobby  of  the  House 
of  Commons.  He  stopped  and  came  over  to  me  and 
shook  hands. 

"Yes,  the  eyes  are  better,"  he  said,  "much  better,  thank 
you  and  thanks  to  you  in  some  part  for  what  you  said." 
Next  year,  1888,  Hicks-Beach  returned  to  the  House 
of  Commons,  eyes  cured,  health  completely  reestablished. 
His  originality  had  not  cost  him  his  influence  with  his 
party,  for  he  was  at  once  made  President  of  the  Board  of 
Trade,  and  held  the  office  till  the  Liberals  returned  to 
power  in  1902. 

In  those  three  years  he  fulfilled  the  hopes  of  his  friends 
and  grounded  his  reputation ;  he  won  the  permanent  of- 
ficia;ls  in  his  department,  and  became  known  as  an  able 
administrator. 


LORD  ST.  ALDWYN  171 

In  1905  the  Conservatives  again  carried  the  elections 
and  Hicks-Beach  was  appointed  Chancellor  of  the  Ex- 
chequer, the  highest  office  in  the  government  after  that 
of  Prime  Minister. 

Twenty  years  before,  at  fifty,  he  had  been  leader  of  the 
House  for  a  short  time.  He  had  a(  certain  curt  abruptness 
of  manner,  the  outward  and  visible  sign  in  him  of  an 
aloofness  of  mind,  which  the  ordinary  member  of  Par- 
liament resented,  regarded  as  unjustifiable  conceit  in  one 
who  was  hardly  more  than  a  poor  baronet,  a  country 
squire.  Some  one,  annoyed  by  his  imperiousness,  called 
him  "Black  Michael."  I  think  Swift  MacNeil  was  the 
godfather,  and  the  nickname  showed  extraordinary 
divination,  for  it  was  not  suggested  by  appearance.  Sir 
Michael  Hicks-Beach  was  tall,  abou]t  six  feet  in  height, 
and  wore  a  short,  brown  beard ;  his  face  was  rather  long, 
his  head  long,  too.  At  fifty  he  looked  forty  and  was 
neither  dark  nor  fair :  why,  then,  Black  Michael  ? 

Throughout  his  dark  days  of  pain  and  neglect  the  nick- 
name was  unused,  yet  it  was  curiously  appropriate  and 
forecast  the  future.  The  contempt  Hicks-Beach  felt  for 
the  party  that  threw  him  over  in  1887,  when  as  Irish 
Secretary  he  had  acted  to  the  highest  in  him,  left  its 
majrk,  reinforcing  his  natural  melancholy.  At  the  Board 
of  Trade  he  did  his  work  and  kept  to  himself  and  the 
consciousness  of  power  grew  upon  him.  Always  proud 
and  self-centered,  he  became  prouder  and  more  ac- 
customed to  trust  his  own  judgement,  as  he  saw  how  his 
ablest  subordinates  had  to  bow  to  it. 

Now,   ait   nearly   seventy,   he   took   up   the  work  of 


172  CONTEMPORARY  PORTRAITS 

Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer,  feeling  sure  that  the  higher 
the  pedestal,  the  better  his  height  would  be  appreciated. 
Even  before  his  first  Budget  he  surprised  the  House  by 
taking  a  line  of  his  own  again  and  again  in  debate. 
There  was  iEsigtit  in  the  man  which  gave  him  new  ex- 
pressions. Never  fluent,  much  less  rhetorical,  regarded, 
I  indeed,  as  somewhat  inarticulate,  he  yet  coined  the 
I  phrase  "the  open  door"  in  China,  which  stuck  and  was 
I  adopted  in  both  Germany  and  France.  Impartial  ob- 
servers began  to  revise  their  previous  superficial  estimate 
of  him,  began  to  wonder  whether  by  any  chance  Hicks- 
Beach  was  a  great  man.  His  first  Budget  deepened  the 
high  opinion  of  him  which  was  again  being  put  forward 
by  permanent  officials  of  the  department.  He  got  up 
in  a  crowded  House  and  without  a>  trace  of  hesitancy  or 
of  preparation  put  forth  the  annual  balance-sheet  with 
a  clearness  and  mastery  of  figures  that  surprised  every 
one.  He  hardly  used  a  note.  He  stood  there,  a  tall,  lean 
man,  doing  his  job,  without  frills  of  any  sort,  without 
waiting  for  applause  or  even  noticing  it  when  it  came. 
He  ended  in  the  same  conversational  way  by  declaring 
that  in  an  English  Treasury  official,  parsimony  was  the 
chiefest  virtue:  waste  the  ordinary  democratic  pitfall. 
No  rule,  however,  without  exceptions ;  reluctantly  he  had 
borrowed  from  the  Sinking  Fund ;  he  would  do  so  again 
if  necessary:  no  canons  holy,  no  command  sacred  in  a 
rich  and  growing  concern — save  economy. 

The  curt  phrases,  the  command  of  the  position,  the 
even  strong  voice,  never  loud,  always  clear,  the  conver- 


LORD  ST.  ALDWYN  173 

sational  tone,  had  an  astonishing  effect:  "very  able  .  .  . 
a  big  man"  was  the  verdict  of  those  capable  of  judging. 

Next  morning  the  papers  praised  him  almost  without 
reserve.  Some  critics  in  the  House  next  night  tried  to 
pick  holes.  He  listened  in  silence  till  the  last  one  had 
aired  his  fad  and  then  got  up  and  declared  he  had  only 
.heard  one  thing  worth  noticing  in  the  four  hours.  He 
dealt  with  the  objection  like  a  master  and  then  walked 
out  of  the  House  as  if  he  did  not  care  a  copper  what  the 
Members  thought  of  him.  Suddenly  every  one  spoke  f 
him  as  "Black  Michael":  his  daring  to  speak  the  truth, 
his  felt  disdain,  the  underlying  pessimism  and  me- 
lancholy justified  the  nickname. 

But  there  was  deep  and  generous  kindliness  in  the  man 
besides  imperious  strength.  I  went  to  see  him  shortly 
before  his  second  Budget.  Every  one  was  excited  about 
it ;  the  South  African  War  had  cost  a  great  deal ;  the  re- 
covery after  it  was  surprisingly  slow ;  thinking  men  were 
beginning  to  realize  the  new  truth  that  half  of  all  the 
wealth  of  a  country  is  produced  every  year,  that  money 
spent  on  powder  and  shot  is  worse  th-sn  thrown  away, 
that  unproductive  production  is  more  wasteful  than  un- 
productive consumption ;  in  fine,  that  fighting  costs  more 
than  money  and  luxuries  must  be  paid  for  twice  over. 

I  found  that  though  Hicks-Beach  hadn't  read  much 
political  economy,  he  had  grasped  essentials,  approaching 
every  question  from  the  moral  side,  found  them  all  sur- 
prisingly simple.  Again  and  again  he  emphasized  the 
need  of  economy :  "Can't  have  your  cake  and  eat  it  .  .  . 
the  whole  country  wanted  the  war,  now  they  must  pay 


174  CONTEMPORARY  PORTRAITS 

for  it  .  .  .  war  usually  idiotic.  .  .  .  Chamberlain  too  com- 
bative." 

When  the  talk  was  over  I  asked  him  might  I  use  what 
he  had  told  me  in  my  paper.    He  got  up  and  whistled : 

"Whew!  What  would  the  House  say  if  I  gave  the 
Budget  provisions  first  to  a  newspaper  ,  .  ."  He  smiled, 
shaking  his  head.     "I'm  afraid  that's  impossible." 

"But  my  paper  is  so  small."  I  replied,  "it  would  have 
little  importance  .  .  .  every  one  in  power  would  pretend 
not  to  believe  it  .  .  .  many  would  think  I  was  forecasting 
the  future  from  the  past."  He  still  shook  his  head,  smil- 
ing.   I  had  not  found  the  true  argument.    Again  I  tried : 

"Nothing  you  have  told  me  would  have  any  effect  on 
the  Stock  Exchange.  I  shall  expect  you  to  deny  that  you 
gave  it  to  me  for  publication."    Quickly  he  rejoined : 

"No,  no,  I  sha'n't  disavow  you;  I  want  to  help  you. 
H'm,  h'm  .  .  .  What  you  say  about  the  Stock  Exchange  is 
true.  That's  the  real  reason  such  things  are  kept  secret 
and  divulged  to  the  House  first."  A  moment's  thought 
and  suddenly  he  exclaimed :  "Go  ahead :  tell  it  all ;  I 
don't  care,  let  'em  grumble,  d — n  them." 

I  got  up  at  once,  fearing  second  thoughts,  and  possible 
reservations;  but  he  had  dismissed  the  subject  from  his 
mind. 

"You  keep  as  young  looking  as  ever,"  he  remarked 
pleasantly.  "How  do  you  manage  it?  You  look  thirty, 
yet  you  must  be  near  fifty?" 

"More,"  I  replied,  laughing.  "I  could  return  the  com- 
pliment; you  look  fifty,  and  yet  .  .  ." 


LORD  ST.  ALDWYN  i75 

"Seventy,  seventy,"  he  repeated.  "Three  score  years 
and  ten  .  .  .  I'll  soon  say  vixi,"  he  added  half-bitterly. 

The  only  expression  in  a  foreign  language  I  ever  heard 
him  use ;  struck  by  it  probably  at  Eton — "I  have  lived." 

I  looked  at  his  face:  it  was  worn;  lines  everywhere: 
deep-set,  sad  eyes,  as  if  they  shrank  from  seeing  life 
stripped  of  youth's  roseate  glamour. 

"Lots  still  to  do,"  I  cried.     "The  last  fight,  the  best." 

"Curious,"  he  exclaimed,  putting  his  hands  on  my 
shoulders.  "You  say  the  things  I've  been  saying  to  my-* 
self.  There  may  still  be  something  worth  fighting  for," 
he  mused  .  .  .  and  we  parted. 

The  result  justified  my  guess.  I  published  the  three 
chief  provisions  of  the  Budget  and  they  appeared  in  print 
and  on  posters  all  over  London  some  days  before  Hicks- 
Beach  made  his  Budget  speech  in  the  House ;  but  no  paper 
took  any  notice  of  the  pronouncement.  It  did  me  some 
good  and  no  one  any  harm. 

One  Irishman  in  the  House  remarked  that  he  seemed 
to  have  heard  Hicks-Beach's  speech  before :  "the  pro- 
visions of  it  were  in  the  air,  so  to  speak" :  the  pin-prick 
made  members  smile. 

Some  years  later  a  proposal  to  take  Salisbury  Plain 
for  army  manoeuvers  on  a  grand  scale  passed  the  House 
of  Commons.  The  landlords  had  to  be  bought  out :  their 
lands  therefore  were  valued  and  the  contest  between  so- 
called  private  rights  and  national  needs  began.  As  usual 
in  England  the  nation's  pocket  suffered.  When  the 
private  telegraph  companies  were  taken  over  by  the  post- 
office  the  state  had  to  pay  three  times  their  real  value. 


176  CONTEMPORARY  PORTRAITS 

So  now  the  landowners  held  out  for  and  obtained  three 
prices  and  more  for  every  acre  of  land  the  government 
wanted.  Michael  Hicks-Beach,  now  Lord  St.  Aldwyn, 
owned  a  small  slice  of  Salisbury  Plain.  I  believe  about 
.  33  acres.  When  it  came  to  bargaining  for  it,  he  asked,  I 
think,  £163,000,  and  was  stiff  against  any  reduction. 

The  matter  came  up  in  the  House  of  Commons:  some 
Liberal  had  stumbled  on  the  "pot  of  roses,"  or  more  pro- 
bably the  Liberal  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer  took  care 
that  the  secret  should  be  known  in  order  to  show  how 
much  more  honest  he  was  than  his  Conservative  pre- 
decessor. However  this  may  be,  the  question  was  put  and 
his  answer  was : 

"Yes,  Lord  St.  Aldwyn  asked  and  received  £163,500 
for  thirty-three  acres."  (I  can't  be  sure  of  the  exact 
amount.) 

Members  looked  at  each  other:  the  price  was  in- 
credibly high. 

The  next  question  was  even  more  illuminating:  What 
was  the  government  valuation?  The  answer  came  pat 
£13,500." 

The  effect  was  stunning :  no  hypocritical  veil  could  re- 
sist such  a  stab.  Suddenly  a  whisper — "Black  Michael 
had  taken  £150,000  exactly  to  keep  his  peerage  on" — 
a  smile  on  every  face  broad  as  the  figures. 

A  month  or  two  later  I  met  Lord  St.  Aldwyn  by  what 
men  call  chance.    After  the  usual  greetings: 

"Will  you  come  my  way?'  he  asked. 

"It  is  the  only  way  I  can  go  now,"  he  added  smiling, 
"but  I  still  walk  as  much  as  I  can." 


LORD  ST.  ALDWYN  177 

I  hardly  knew  what  to  say :  he  looked  his  age ;  the  im- 
mitigable years  had  done  their  work.  "Black  Michael" 
was  an  old,  old  man;  the  end  in  sight. 

Suddenly  our  previous  conversation  and  the  memory 
of  the  land-sale  came  into  my  head  together : :  wais  that 
his  "last  fight?" 

I  felt  uncomfortable.  Did  he  notice  my  silence?  I 
can  not  tell.  I  cannot  tell  how  the  talk  began,  nor  how 
much  of  it  was  plain  speech  on  his  part  or  inference  on 
mine.  I  can  only  give  my  impression.  He  began,  I  think 
about  titles,  asking  me  to  omit  the  "handle"  as  before. 

"You  don't  care  for  titles,  do  you?  I  don't  think  I  do 
either,  much — still  I  have  a  son,  you  know,  Quenington. 
If  I  had  had  only  my  three  gfals,  I'd  never  have  asked  the 
King  for  the  title ;  though  to  tell  truth  he  proposed  it  him- 
self.   In  England  it's  part  of  the  reward " 

I  nodded  my  head :  I  could  not  speak :  I  had  hoped  so 
much  more  from  the  man  who  at  the  outset  had  fought 
Lord  Clanricarde  and  all  his  own  world  to  boot,  for 
right's  sake  and  justice. 

I  had  always  hoped  and  believed  that  wise  men  grew 
less  selfish  as  the  came  near  the  end.  Eyes  unseeled, 
desires  quenched,  the  soul-wings  lifting  .  .  .  and  now  .  .  . 
it  was  too  painful. 

He  went  on  impatiently. 

"Reward!  I  could  not  live  on  my  pay  as  Cabinet 
Minister :  what's  5,000  poimds  a  year  for  a^  man  with  a 
country  place  to  keep  up  and  a  town  house  besides?  I 
was  a  poor  baronet,  an  intolerable  position  ....  poverty  is 
a  bad  counselor  ...  in  a  member  of  the  governing 


178  CONTEMPORARY  PORTRAITS 

classes  idiotic.  A  temptation  and  worse  .  .  .  the  public 
will  gain  through  paying  their  real  leaders  properly. 
The  house  gives  a  second-rate  general  a  title  and  50,000 
pounds  to  keep  it  up  on  (was  he  thinking  of  Kitchener?). 
Why  shouldn't  they  give  me  money  for  over  fifty  years 
of  work — a  small  reward,  I  call  it  .  .  .  very  small." 

That,  then,  was  the  Apologia!  It  flashed  through  my 
mind  that  that  was  the  soul  of  the  man,  that  he  was  all  of 
a  piece,  English,  long-headed,  practical  in  spite  of  his 
idealism,  a  real  man  in  a  real  world,  with  strong  paternal 
love  probably  for  his  sort,  and  a  great  desire  to  do  right, 
to  act  fairly,  to  justify  himself  if  he  had  failed  of  the 
high  mark.  Most  men  become  more  selfish  and  not  less 
as  the  grow  old :  it  is  only  the  poets  and  seers — the  choice 
and  master-spirits  of  the  world — who  turn  sweeter  with 
the  years,  and  strong  and  true  though  Hicks-Beach  was, 
he  was  not  one  of  the  Sacred  Band.  Yet,  on  the  whole, 
and  compared  with  other  men,  even  with  other  men  of 
genius  like  Lord  Randolph  Churchill,  he  was  a  good  man, 
not  a  bad  one,  an  honest  man,  too:  at  least  as  Hamlet 
said  of  himself,  "indifferent  honest!"  as  honest  as  the 
evil  times  permitted.  I  was  glad  I  could  reconcile  my 
faith  with  my  deep  liking  for  the  person. 

"I  agree  with  you,"  I  said  when  he  had  finished.  "The 
laborer  is  worthy  of  his  hire.  I  have  known  no  better 
laborer  than  you  in  England,  but  many  who  demanded 
and  took  a  much  greater  reward." 

"I  felt  sure  you  would  understand,"  he  said :  "the  few 
do,  and  the  others  don't  matter.  I'm  glad  to  have  had 
this  talk. 


LORD  ST.  ALDWYN  179 

"I  wish  you'd  come  down  to  Coin  St.  Aldwyn  and  stop 
a  week  this  summer.  The  place  looks  so  much  better  in 
summer:  you'd  know  then  how  a  man  comes  to  love  it. 
I'm  always  glad  to  get  back  home."  I  excused  myself 
after  thanking  him,  and  we  parted. 

I  stood  and  looked  after  him. 

"One  of  the  ablest  and  certainly  the  most  honest  Eng- 
lish statesmen  of  my  time,"  I  said  to  myself. 

******* 

In  the  last  week  of  April  191 5  came  the  news  that  his 
son,  Lord  Quenington,  had  been  killed  at  the  front  in 
France,  leaving,  however,  a  young  son  to  inherit  the  place 
and  title.  A  week  later  the  great  Earl  gave  up,  too,  and  full 
of  years  (he  was  over  eighty)  was  gathered  to  his  fathers 
in  the  old  house  he  loved  so  well.  The  park  and  the 
gardens  rise  before  me  as  I  write:  the  English  wild 
flowers  on  the  borders  five  yards  deep  are  swaying  and 
curtsying  in  the  sun  and  warm  southwest  wind  while  the 
chestnut  trees  are  holding  ivory  lamps  against  the  green. 


Augustus  John 


AUGUSTUS  JOHN 

IT  was  Montaigne  who  said  that  height  was  the  only 
beauty  of  man,  and  indeed  height  is  the  only  thing 
that  gives  presence  to  a  man.    A  miniature  Venus 
may  be  more  attractive  than  her  taller  sisters,  but  a  man 
must  have  height  to  be  imposing  in  appearance  or  indeed 
impressive. 

Of  all  the  men  I  have  met  Augustus  John  has  the  most 
striking  personality.  Over  six  feet  in  height,  spare  and 
square  shouldered,  a  good  walker  who  always  keeps  him- 
self fit  and  carries  himself  with  an  air,  John  would  draw 
the  eye  in  any  crowd.  He  is  splendidly  handsome  with 
excellent  features,  great  violet  eyes  and  long  lashes. 
Were  it  not  for  a  certain  abruptness  of  manner  he  would 
be  almost  too  good-looking;  as  it  is,  he  is  physically, 
perhaps,  the  handsomest  specimen  of  the  genus  homo  that 
I  have  ever  met. 

And  John  has  the  great  manner  to  boot.  I  remember 
one  night  at  dinner  he  threw  back  his  head  in  flagrant 
disagreement  with  something  said,  and  quoted  Rossetti's 
famous  translation  of  the  Villon  verses :  "Where  Are  the 
Snows  of  Yesteryear,"  with  a  pasionate  enthusiasm  that 
swept  aside  argument  and  infected  all  his  hearers.  Every 
one  felt  in  the  imperious  manner,  flaming  eyes  and 
eloquent  cadenced  voice  the  outward  and  visible  signs 
of  that  demonic  spiritual  endowment  we  call  genius. 

i8i 


i82  CONTEMPORARY  PORTRAITS 

John  has  had  a  curious  history.  He  went  to  the  Slade 
School  of  Design  in  London  as  a  boy  and  studied  there 
for  some  years.  He  was  a  quiet,  studious  youth,  rather 
solitary  in  his  habits,  in  no  way  remarkable  or  even  con- 
spicuous. One  summer  holiday,  however,  a  friend  tells 
me,  he  went  to  the  Welsh  coast  for  the  sea-bathing.  He 
dived  in  one  day  and  struck  his  head  on  a  rock.  His 
companions  pulled  him  out  and  carried  him  home.  He  was 
put  to  bed  and  the  doctor  declared  that  his  patient  must 
be  kept  quiet;  he  was  probably  suffering  from  concus- 
sion of  the  brain. 

In  a  few  months,  however,  John  got  all  right  again 
and  went  back  to  London  and  school,  where  for  the  first 
week  he  wore  a  skull  cap.  But  to  the  astonishment  of  my 
informant  he  was  a  new  John ;  a  John  who  was  curiously 
arrogant  and  contemptuous  even  of  the  great  masters. 
He  surprised  everybody  at  once  by  his  wonderful  power 
of  drawing  and  his  weird  and  defiant  looseness  of  living. 
The  friend  who  tells  me  the  story  declares  that  John  owes 
his  genius  to  that  blow  on  the  head.  I  give  the  tale  for 
what  it  is  worth,  because  it  corresponds  loosely  to  the  fact 
that  John  came  into  possession. of  his  astonishing  talent 
for  drawing  and  his  habit  of  unconventional  living  with 
surprising  abruptness. 

I  came  to  know  John  pretty  well  in  London  and  was 
at  once  an  enthusiastic  admirer  of  his  drawing  if  not  of 
his  painting.  He  was,  and  is,  a  draughtsman  of  the  first 
rank,  to  be  compared  with  Ingres,  Durer  and  Degas,  one 
of  the  great  masters,  but  the  quality  of  his  painting  is 
poor — gloomy  and  harsh — reflecting,  I  think  a  certain 


AUGUSTUS  JOHN  183 

disdainful  bitterness  of  character  which  does  not  go  with 
the  highest  genius. 

John  stayed  with  me  once  for  two  or  three  days  in  the 
south  of  France.  He  was  an  extraordinary  interesting 
companion.  He  had  just  been  through  the  north  of  Italy, 
had  studied  at  Orvieto  the  mosaics  and  frescos  of  Signo- 
relli,  and  been  enormously  impressed  by  them.  He 
talked  enthusiastically  of  the  master's  brains  and  powers ; 
he  would  place  him,  he  declared,  above  Michaelangelo 
and/ Leonardo,  a  supreme  artist. 

I  was  the  more  inclined  to  listen  to  him,  because  he 
showed  himself  on  occasion  a  very  good  judge  of  litera- 
ture, with  a  curious  liking  for  what  I  would  call  the  ab- 
normalities of  real  life,  which  he  found  infinitely  more 
suggestive  and  more  inspiring  than  any  artistic  conven- 
tions. He  was  well-read  in  modern  English  verse,  but 
had  a  particular  passion  for  the  Romany  tongue  and  the 
vagrant  gypsy  people. 

"Whatever  is  out  of  the  common  appeals  to  me",he  said, 
"and  here  \ou  have  a  nation  of  nomads  who  acknowl- 
edge no  canons  of  civilized  life  and  yet  manage  as  pariahs 
if  not  as  outlaws  to  exist  and  propagate  their  kind.  I 
not  only  respect  and  admire  their  fanatic  independence, 
but  I  enjoy  talking  to  them  and  living  with  them,  I 
have  tried  it  in  Wales  and  found  them  far  more  sym- 
pathetic and  companionable  than  my  own  race,  and  I  have 
tried  it  in  France  just  as  successfully,  perhaps,  because 
the  gypsy  women  are  frankly  sensuous  and  their  men 
prefer  stealing  to  huckstering.     Besides  they  haven't  a 


i84  CONTEMPORARY  PORTRAITS 

touch  of  religious  hypocrisy,  and  that's  what  I  most 
detest." 

John  is  a  rebel  at  heart,  perhaps,  even  more  of  a  rebel 
than  I  am.  He  praised  some  of  my  stories  beyond 
measure,  so  that  I  gave  him  the  first  sketch  of  my  book 
on  Oscar  Wilde,  but  he  did  not  like  my  pointing  out  to 
Wilde  that  his  peculiarity  was  vicious,  he  himself  a  sort 
of  arrested  development.  He  would  have  it  that  Wilde 
had  as  much  right  to  his  tastes  and  their  gratification  as 
any  man.  "Pheasant  or  partridge,"  John  declared 
cynically,  "who  shall  decide;  let  every  man  eat  what  he 
prefers." 

"Even  human  flesh?"  I  queried. 

"Why  not,"  replied  John  defiantly;  "if  it  came  my 
way  and  pleased  me,  I  should  eat  it." 

His  view  of  life  is  that  of  the  realist-skeptic.  He 
regards  all  belief  in  progress  and  improvement  as  a  super- 
stition. What  is,  is  all  we  have  and  there  is  no  use  in 
grumbling  or  kicking.  After  all,  this  world  is  a  pretty 
good  place  for  the  healthy  and  fortunate.  Live  your  life 
to  the  full  is  the  whole  duty  of  man,  according  to  John. 
He  would  accept  Shakespeare's  phrase  in  Lear,  "Ripeness 
is  all";  but  still  the  idea  of  perfection  commands  the 
homage  of  the  sincere  and  rules  conduct. 

Ten  years  ago  as  to-day  John  was  a  law  unto  himself 
and  lived  outside  all  English  conventions  and  English 
social  life  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  many  great  ladies  and 
some  men  would  willingly  have  made  a  lion  of  him. 

Sir  Hugh  Lane,  the  Irish  art  critic,  was  one  of  his 
earliest  admirers.    He  went  down,  it  will  be  remembered. 


AUGUSTUS  JOHN  185 

in  the  Lusitania.  After  he  had  made  his  money  Sir  Hugh 
took  a  house  in  Chelsea  and  determined  to  get  Augustus 
John  to  execute  some  frescoes  in  the  hall  and  dining- 
room.  John,  it  is  said,  got  a  large  sum  down  and  im- 
mediately went  to  work,  first  prudently  stretching  canvas 
over  the  walls  so  that  his  work  might  not  be  exposed 
to  the  inclemencies  of  weather.  He  had  sketched  in 
several  nudes  from  the  life  when  one  day  a  lady  came  in. 
Lady  Lane,  I  think,  and  was  dreadfully  shocked.  She 
insisted  that  John  should  stop.  He  packed  up  his  material 
and  left  Lane  to  finish  the  picture  himself,  if  he  cared 
to.  I  saw  his  work  and  thought  it  superb;  no  greater 
master  of  line  has  lived. 

During  the  war  he  was  made  a  major  in  the  Canadian 
army.  The  farewell  party  he  gave  in  Chelsea  is  still 
talked  of  as  the  wildest  orgy  London  had  seen  for  many 
a  year.  Twelve  or  fifteen  painters  and  writers  sat  up  all 
night  drinking,  and  when  in  the  morning  the  Staff  car 
came  to  the  door  for  John,  the  tipsy  gfuests  gave  him  a 
great  send  off.  When  he  arrived  at  Boulogne  it  is  said 
he  was  still  drunk  and  became  disorderly  when  he  was  re- 
primanded for  having  his  spurs  on  upside  down.  He 
would  wear  the  damned  things,  he  declared,  as  he  pleased. 
After  some  months  a  letter  came  to  the  War  Office  from 
his  commanding  officer  declaring  that  Major  John  had 
imbibed  enough  atmosphere  and  whiskey  to  paint  the 
whole  of  France — red. 

On  his  return  to  England  he  soon  showed  that  he  had 
not  altered,  for  he  was  nearly  court-martialed  for  knock- 
ing down  a  superior  officer  who  contradicted  him  at  a 


i86  CONTEMPORARY  PORTRAITS 

social  gathering  at  the  Duke  of  Manchester's.  John  is 
regarded  as  frankly  impossible  in  society  in  spite  of  his 
good  looks  and  splendid  talent.  To  me  the  rebel  is  al- 
ways infinitely  more  interesting  than  the  conventional 
gentleman.  I  cannot  help  believing  that  the  rebel  gives 
more  to  humanity  than  the  conventional  person,  because 
he  learns  more  and  because  of  the  something  dsemonic  in 
him  which  alone  could  induce  him  to  revolt  in  England, 
the  home  of  convention.  Yet  I  do  not  believe  it  helps  to 
kick  against  the  pricks  too  often  or  too  hard. 

The  question  remains,  what  has  John  given  to  the 
world  ?  A  good  critic  the  other  day  assured  me  that  John 
was  the  first  living  English  painter ;  that  his  great  cartoon 
forty  feet  long  and  fifteen  feet  high  of  the  Canadians 
opposite  Lens  in  the  winter  of  1917-18  is  one  of  the  great 
cartoons  of  the  world,  worthy  to  be  compared  with  those 
of  Michelangelo  and  Leonardo.  I  do  not  agree  with  this 
estimate:  it  seemes  too  quiet  far  too  orderly  to  represent 
gassed  and  choking  troops.  Yet  from  the  reproduction 
of  it  that  I  have  seen  it  appears  to  me  to  be  fine — 
— John  at  his  best.  The  scene  depicts  Canadian 
troops,  stretcher  bearers  and  German  prisoner^,  while  on 
the  left  French  women  and  children  are  flying  from  the 
scene ;  in  the  background  a  shell  bursting  and  between  it 
and  a  flare  of  light  a  great  figure  of  the  Christ,  evidently 
a  sort  of  village  shrine.  A  profoundly  interesting  cartoon 
that  may  well  be  of  high  value. 

But  John's  pictures,  as  I  have  said,  fail  to  satisfy  me  in 
spite  of  the  really  magnificent  quality  in  them. 

I  remember  a  picture  called  "The  Orange  Jacket"  in 


AUGUSTUS  JOHN  187 

which  a  gypsy  woman's  face  and  figure  are  set  forth  with 
astonishing  vividness;  the  black  head;  the  hair  all  over 
her  forehead  matching  her  black  eyes ;  the  thick  lips  and 
intentness  of  the  gaze  balanced  by  the  orange-red  of  the 
jacket  and  the  white  and  blue  of  the  blouse.  But  I  prefer 
a  picture  called  "The  Red  Handkerchief."  A  girl's  figure 
with  wind-tossed  hair.  I  remember  still  the  shadowy  eyes 
and  the  blue  dress  set  off  by  a  red  handkerchief  carried 
in  the  right  hand.  The  figure  is  superbly  rendered ;  very 
summarily,  yet  the  lissomeness  given  to  the  slight  round 
form  is  arresting — splendidly  sensual  this  with  the  spi- 
ritual note  as  well  in  the  brooding  mystery  of  the  eyes. 

"The  Washing  Day"  comes  before  me  as  I  write.  A 
woman  in  a  garden  washing  at  a  basin  with  her  red  shirt 
picked  out  with  white  and  a  red  cap  of  the  same  material 
on  her  black  fiair ;  clothes  of  various  colors  are  drying 
over  the  line  in  the  distance,  and  each  color  from  the 
green  of  the  trees  to  the  ochre  of  some  piled-up  brick  is 
of  value  in  a  consummate  composition. 

Some  of  John's  landscapes,  too,  are  unforgetable ;  a 
little  lake  in  the  mountains;  the  heathy  foreground  just 
indicated  while  the  sky's  worked  out  in  realistic  detail  of 
an  astounding  beauty  and  the  whole  synthetised  into  an 
emotion  of  evening  and  haunting  tranquil  loveliness. 

Finally  I  recall  two  gypsy  girls  in  profile,  half  figures, 
draped  in  bright  colors ;  both  are  finished  minutely  to 
every  whorl  even  in  the  ears ;  perhaps,  because  they  are 
not  even  pretty,  there  is  over  the  whole  a  feeling  of 
brooding,  sullen,  bestial  sensuality,  arresting  yet  sugges- 
tive as  a  personal  confession. 


i88  CONTEMPORARY  PORTRAITS 

And  yet  I  am  not  content.  I  had  hoped  that  John 
would  be  with  Rembrandt  and  Velasquez — a  new  star  in 
the  firmament.  But  he  is  content,  it  seems,  to  be  in  the 
second  line  with  men  like  Degas.  Still,  he  is  only  about 
forty  and  may  yet  do  greater  work  than  any  he  has  g^ven 
us.  He  seems  to  have  turned  his  head  away  from  the 
modern  school ;  he  has  gone  half-way  along  the  road  with 
Cezanne,  but  not  the  whole  way.  I  remember  a  picture 
of  Gauguin  even,  a  Tahitian  Venus  thrown  naked  on  her 
face  on  a  bed,  that  is  at  once  more  sensual  and  more 
finely  conceived  than  anything  John  has  done.  And 
Cezanne  has  painted  one  or  two  heads  of  contemporaries 
with  more  astonishing  mastery  than  anything  John  has 
shown.  Yet  with  his  prodigious  talent  he  mav  still  do 
wionders.  I  can  only  hope  that  he  will  yet  fulfill  the 
dreams  of  his  youth.  He  would  be  inclined,  I  am  afraid, 
to  add  cynically  the  French  proverb,  Songes  sont  men- 
songes. 

In  this  sketch  I  seem  to  have  laid  stress  on  John's 
drinking,  I  have  never  seen  him  the  worse  for  drink  nor 
do  I  believe  that  that  vice  has  any  attraction  for  a  man 
of  his  high  intellect  and  imperious  character.  He  would 
drink,  I  imagine,  if  at  all,  out  of  a  sort  of  bravado  and 
because  he  can  no  doubt  by  virtue  of  splendid  health 
stand  a  good  deal  without  showing  any  signs  of  it.  But 
the  legend  about  him  in  London  is  of  drink  and  orgies, 
because  he  defies  conventions,  and  drunkenness  is  the 
English  symbol  of  all  rebellion,  whether  moral  or  im- 
moral, because  the  English  have  no  conception  of  any 
revolt  coming  from  above.    The  Jews,  it  will  be  remem- 


AUGUSTUS  JOHN  189 

bered,  in  the  same  spirit,  spoke  of  Jesus  as  being  a  wine- 
bibber  and  a  sinner. 

John's  pitfall  is  not  drink. 

If  John  does  not  realize  himself  to  the  uttermost, 
doesn't  mint  all  the  gold  in  him,  it  will  be,  I  am  sure, 
because  he  has  been  too  heavily  handicapped  by  his  extra- 
ordinary physical  advantages.  His  fine  presence  and 
handsome  face  brought  him  to  notoriety  very  speedily, 
and  that's  not  good  for  a  man.  Women  and  girls  by  the 
dozen  have  made  up  to  him  and  he  has  spent  himself  in 
living  instead  of  doing  his  work.  Art  is  the  most  ab- 
sorbing of  all  mistresses  and  the  most  jealous :  "You 
must  feel  more  than  any  other  man,"  she  orders,  "and 
yet  remain  faithful  to  the  high  purpose."  Many  are 
called  and  few  are  chosen. 


L 


/ 


Coventry  Patmore 


COVENTRY  PATMORE 

"This  land  of  such  dear  souls,  this  dear,  dear  land. 
Dear  for  her  reputation  through  the  world." 

— Shakespeare. 

THIS  is  what  England  has  always  been  to  m«,  "the 
land  of  such  dear  souls."  Her  reputation  through 
the  world  is  not  whait  Shakespeare  thought  it, 
thahks  mainly  to  her  politicians ;  but  I  have  said  enough 
about  that  elsewhere.  Here  I  am  only  concerned  to 
tell  of  the  dear  souls  in  England,  and  among  them  in  my 
time  none  was  dearer  than  Coventry  Patmore,  partly  be- 
cause of  the  extraordinary  whimsies  and  peculiarities 
that  set  off  his  fine  mind  and  noble  generosity  of 
character. 

It  seemed  to  surprise  Englishmen  even  to  see  us  to- 
gether. Patmore  as  a  high  poet  and  Catholic  protagonist 
was  of  the  elect  and  select,  for  then  as  now  the  Catholic 
hierarchy  and  the  Catholic  nobility  were  the  guardians 
so  to  say  of  Society's  Holy  of  Holies,  and  that  Pat- 
more should  be  seen  about  with  an  American  and  Socialist 
journalist,  appeared  to  the  average  Briton  ai  desecration. 
When  they  found  out  that  I  admired  and  loved  him  and 
that  he  liked  me  and  my  work,  they  were  still  more 
astonished,  for  as  a  rule  he  held  himself  aloof  from  men 
with  a  singular  dignity  and  used  his  position  as  poet  and 

191 


192  CONTEMPORARY  PORTRAITS 

seer  to  speak  his  mind  at  all  times  with  perfect  sincerity 
and  most  un-English  frankness. 

His  judgements  were  by  no  means  infallible;  always 
tinctured  indeed  by  personal  feeling,  but  they  came  from 
such  an  austere  moral  height  that  they  always  commanded 
respect  in  England  and  acquiesence  if  not  acceptance. 

I  remember  once  the  question  of  the  hundred  best  books 
was  brought  up  by  Mr.  Frederick  Greenwood,  the  editor 
of  the  St.  Jannes  Gazette,  and  Coventry  Patmore  aston- 
ished the  table  when  he  was  appealed  to,  by  the  statement : 
"When  I  was  in  the  British  Museum  I  used  to  say  there 
were  forty  miles  of  useless  books ;  all  the  good  literature 
of  the  world  could  be  put  in  forty  feet." 

"Why  The  Fathers  of  the  Church  alone  would  fill  that 
space,"  cried  one  who  would  be  witty. 

"Fathers  of  the  Church  indeed  in  the  true  sense,"  was 
Patmore's  incisive  retort. 

There  was  a  sort  of  gasp  at  the  novelty  of  the  thought 
and  phrase,  but  I  agreed  with  the  judgement  enthusi- 
astically ;  in  fact,  I  had  aiways  thought  that  four  feet  even 
would  be  sufficient;  that  all  the  memorable  things  in 
Shakespeare  for  instance  would  go  in  a  dozen  pages. 

It  surprised  me  to  think  of  Coventry  Patmore  in  the 
British  Museum  and  so  I  asked  him  about  it,  and  he  told 
me  quite  unaffectedly  a  remarkable  story.  It  appeared 
that  his  father  had  been  very  well  off  till  he  took  a  hand 
in  the  great  railwajy  gamble  of  1845  ^^d  lost  nearly  every- 
thing. Coventry  had  just  published  his  first  book  of 
poems  at  twenty-one  and  for  a  couple  of  years  had  to 
live  by  his  pen.    He  always  attributed  his  lung  weakness 


COVENTRY    PATMORE  i93 

and  delicacy  of  constitution  in  later  life  to  this  period  of 
privation,  but  I  believe  he  exaggerated  the  matter; 
poverty  and  even  long-continued  hunger  at  twenty-one 
very  seldom  affect  the  constitution.  But  he  resented  the 
petty  miseries  and  told  me  with  keenest  pleasure  how  a 
casual  meeting  with  Mr.  Monckton  Milnes,  aifterwards, 
Lord  Houghton,  at  Mrs.  Procter's,  had  changed  his  whole 
outlook.  A  few  days  after  the  meeting  he  was  astonished 
at  receiving  a  letter  from  Milnes  telling  him  to  present 
himself  at  the  British  Museum  where  he  would  be  ac- 
cepted as  one  of  the  assistants,  Mr.  Milnes  having  already 
written  to  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury  and  other 
Trustees  about    him. 

It  seems  that  after  dinner  in  the  drawing-room,  Milnes 
said  to  Mrs.  Procter: 

"Who  is  your  lean  young  friend  with  the  frayed  coat 
cuffs  ?" 

"You  wouldn't  talk  in  that  way,"  the  lady  answered, 
"if  you  knew  how  clever  he  is  and  how  unfortunate. 
Have  you  read  his  Poems?" 

Milnes  took  them  away  in  his  pocket  and  wrote  to  her 
next  morning:  "If  your  young  friend  would  like  a  post 
in  the  library  of  the  British  Museum,  it  shall  be  obtaiined 
for  him,  if  only  to  induce  you  to  forget  what  must  have 
seemed  my  heartless  flippancy.  His  book  is  the  work  of 
a  true  poet,  and  we  must  see  that  he  never  lacks  butter 
for  his  bread." 

Patmore  told  me  incidentally  thait  the  "poems"  which 
had  won  him  this  recognition  were  "trash,  and  not  worth 
considering." 


194  CONTEMPORARY  PORTRAITS 

What  other  country  is  there  where  a  man  of  Monck- 
ton  Milnes'  position  would  have  thought  it  his  duty  to 
help  a  poverty-stricken  young  poet?  Another  "dear 
soul"  wais  the  man  Carlyle  christened  "Dicky  Milnes,  the 
canairy  bird." 

So  in  1846  Patmore  was  appointed  to  a  positiori  which 
he  declared  of  "all  the  world  was  the  best  suited  to  him." 
He  kept  his  place  for  twenty  years  and  then  retired  with 
the  respect  of  everyone  and  the  maignificent  pension  of  »ix 
or  seven  hundred  dollars  a  year,  which  was  the  largest 
the  trustees  could  allot  him. 

Frederick  Greenwood,  I  think  it  was,  who  introduced 
me  to  Coventry  Patmore  shortly  before  I  took  over  the 
editorship  of  the  Fortnightly  Review  in  '87.  Patmore 
at  the  time  was  sixty-three  or  sixty-four  years  of  age. 
He  must  have  been  tall  as  a  young  man ;  he  was  still  per- 
haps five  feet  ten  or  so,  thin  to  emaciation,  with  an  up- 
right dignity  of  carriage  and  imperiousness  of  manner; 
his  likings  and  dislikings  already  aphoristic  as  if  he  had 
thought  much  about  the  subjects  and  come  to  very  de- 
finite and  pointed  conclusions.  His  forehead  was  curious- 
ly broad  like  Caesar's ;  his  chin,  large  and  bony ;  his  eyes, 
too,  gray,  keen,  challenging;  altogether  he  looked  like  a 
man  of  aiction  rather  than  a  poet. 

The  extravagant  contradictions  in  him  appealed  to  me 
intensely.  At  a  dinner  at  the  Grosvenor  Hotel  once  with 
Greenwood  he  showed  himself  a  more  extreme  Tory 
than  Greenwood.  At  one  moment  he  referred  to  the  poem 
in  which  he  called  the  enfranchisement  of  the  working 
class  "the  great  crime" ;  the  next  he  declared  that  Glad- 


COVENTRY    PATMORE  I95 

stone  would  assuredly  be  damned  for  his  "oklocratic  sen- 
timentalities".   He  is  known  to  have  written  the  famous 
parody  of  the  triumphant  telegram  which  Kaiser  Wilhelm 
sent  to  his  wife  after  the  victory  of  Woerth  in  1870: 
"This  is  to  saiy,  my  dear  Augusta, 
We've  had  another  awful  buster. 
Ten  thousand  Frenchmen  sent  below, 
Praise  God  from  whom  all  blessings  flow." 

Patmore  cared  nothing  for  the  social  uplift  of  the 
working  class ;  "no  spiritual  improvement  in  it,"  he 
opined;  he  would  not  see  that  some  material  betterment 
had  to  come  before  aaiy  spiritual  growth  was  possible. 
He  preached  the  gospel  of  peace  and  love,  yet  at  the  same 
time  insisted  upon  an  increase  of  militarism ;  got  into  a 
fever  about  the  smallness  of  the  British  navy,  aind  saw 
the  hope  of  the  world  in  British  domination. 

With  a  spice  of  malevolence  I  quoted  to  him  Emerson's 
last  speech  before  leaving  England :  "If  the  heart  of  Eng- 
land fail  in  the  chances  of  a  commercial  crisis,  I  shall  look 
to  the  future  of  humanity  westward  of  the  Alleghany 
Mountains." 

In  spite  of  his  youthful  admiration  for  Emerson,  Pat- 
more  shrugged  his  shoulders  and  barked  derisively ;  "and 
the  future  of  poetry  I  suppose  in  Wailt  Whitman." 

I  took  up  the  challenge  instantly.  "You  might  do 
worse,"  I  said,  "some  of  Walt  Whitman  can  be  read  side 
by  side  with  the  last  chapter  of  Ecclesiastes." 

"I'd  like  to  hear  that,"  he  scoffed.  So  I  recited  some 
verses  to  him  and  at  once  he  grew  thoughtful  and  at 
length  admitted  reluctantly:  "That's  fine;  I  hadn't  seen 


196  CONTEMPORARY  PORTRAITS 

it;  bui  most  of  his  stuff  is  drivel;  no  power  of  self- 
criticism  in  him — the  hall-mark  and  obverse  of  creative 
genius.  Poe  is  the  only  singer  America  has  produced, 
and  even  he — " 

Patmore  was  a  most  excellent  host  and  after  the  meal 
gave  us  a  bottle  of  Comet  port,  which  Greenwood  plainly 
relished. 

"Tennyson's  tipple,"  I  remarked. 

"You  pay  my  wine  a  poor  compliment,"  answered  Pat- 
more,  laughing.  "Tennyson  used  to  send  for  his  port  to 
the  nearest  pub;  it  was  quantity  and  not  quality  he 
wanted;  strength,  not  bouquet." 

"Do  you  admire  his  work?"  I  asked;  "nearly  all  his 
later  stuff  bores  me ;  after  thirty  he  had  nothing  new  in 
his  pouch." 

"Patmore,"  interrupted  Greenwood,  "was  the  man  who 
found  the  true  word  for  it.  He  called  the  early  poetry 
Tennyson  and  the  latter  poetry  Tennysonian."  One 
could  not  but  laugh. 

A  little  while  after  this  I  got  a  letter  from  Patmore 
asking  me  to  remember  my  promise  to  come  down  to 
stay  with  him  ait  Hastings.  I  went  down  for  a  weekend 
and  never  enjoyed  a  couple  of  days  more  in  my  life. 

Eager  to  get  the  heart  of  his  mystery,  pondering  how 
best  to  extract  a  confession  of  his  beliefs  and  hof>es,  I 
was  taken  aback  by  his  house,  which  was  really  the  finest 
house  in  Hastings,  with  a  dozen  or  more  bedrooms  and 
a  superb  drawing-room  and  a  cozy  study  in  front.  From 
his  work  in  the  British  Museum  I  had  expected  modest 
comfort  and  res  angitsta  domi,  but  found  wealth  and  a 


COVENTRY    PATMORE  197 

mansion  set  in  three  or  four  acres  of  ground  which  had 
been  converted  into  an  old  Itailian  garden  with  country 
house  terraces  and  forest  trees,  all  in  the  middle  of  a  busy 
watering  place  and  almost  on  the  old  London  road.  A 
proper  dwelling  for  a  poet,  but  how  did  Patmore  get  the 
money  to  keep  up  this  large  and  luxurious  life  ? 

As  unaffectedly  as  he  had  told  about  his  poverty  he 
told  of  his  misery  after  the  death  of  his  first  wife,  "The 
Angel  in  the  House,"  a  wretched  loneliness  which  ended 
in  coughing  and  weakness  and  drove  him  for  a  long 
winter  to  the  Riviera  amd  Rome.  Rome,  which  made 
Luther  a  Protestant  made  Coventry  Patmore  a  Catholic. 
There  he  met  his  second  wife,  a  religious  devotee,  pro- 
posed to  her  and  was  accepted,  then  found  out  that  she 
was  rich,  which  shocked  him  so  that  for  a  time  he 
questioned  the  advisability  of  marriage ;  did  not  think  he 
was  good  enough.  But  in  the  long  run  he  married  her 
and  enjoyed  fourteen  years  of  almost  perfect  happiness. 

Curiously  enough  he  made  no  secret  of  the  fact  that  he 
had  loved  his  first  wife  better.  "I  made  a  half-joke  to 
Mary  about  it  once,"  he  said.    "I  wrote  her : 

"I  could  not  love  thee,  dear,  so  much, 
Loved  I  not  Honor  more." 

Honor  was  the  name  he  gave  his  first  wife,  Emily,  in 
his  poem  The  Angel  in  the  House.  When  I  went  to  bed 
that  night  with  this  confession  in  my  ears  I  threw 
myself  on  the  bed  and  laughed  till  I  ached.  It  never  even 
occured  to  the  poet  that  Mary  might  resent  the  secondary 
place,  and  indeed  it  seems  never  to  han^e  occurred  to  her, 
a  fact  which  convinced  me  that  my  knowledge  of  women 


198  CONTEMPORARY  PORTRAITS 

and  their  power  of  self-abnegation  was  worse  than  in- 
adequate. 

"For  dear  to  maidens  are  their  rivals  dead,"  Patmore 
writes  in  Amelia  with  a  sublime  absence  of  humor. 

His  second  wife  was  forty-two  when  she  married ;  the 
bond  between  these  two  seems  to  have  been  more  spiritual 
than  is  usually  the  case.  Mary  had  no  children  of  her 
own  aipparently  contented  herself  with  playing  foster- 
mother  to  her  husband's  household.  By  all  accounts  she 
was  peculiarly  shy  and  timid. 

Patmore  had  the  originality  of  a  fine  mind  developed 
in  solitude ;  he  loved  convivality  and  men's  taJk  occasion- 
ally; but  had  always  lived  with  his  own  thoughts,  and 
like  the  monarch  his  words  were  stamped  with  his  own 
image  and  superscription. 

On  my  first  visit  we  spent  the  whole  daiy  together  and 
found  various  points  where  our  minds  touched.  He  was 
delighted  that  I  liked  Pascal ;  but  to  my  wonder  praised 
him  not  for  loftiness  of  thought  as  much  as  for  his  hatred 
of  Jesuit  priests. 

"I  knew  we  should  get  along  together,"  he  chirped,  "as 
soon  as  I  heajrd  you  tell  Greenwood  that  you  hated  Man- 
ning and*  loved  Newman ;  the  one's  a  self-seeking  priest, 
the  other  a  spiritual  guide  and  apostle." 

Emerson,  he  confessed,  had  led  him  to  Swedenborg; 
but  when  I  mentioned  Garth  Wilkinson  and  Emerson's 
praise  of  him,  he  surprised  me  by  lifting  his  eyebrow's 
amd  shrugging  his  shoulders  in  contempt. 

"Swedenborg,"  he  persisted,  "is  inspired,  plainly  in- 
spired." 


COVENTRY    PATMORE  i99 

I  pressed  him  about  Boehme,  but  he  had  not  read  him, 
and  so  I  was  again  at  a  loss  and  could  at  first  get  no  clear 
light  on  his  mystical  faith. 

But  on  a  later  visit  he  talked  to  me  enthusiastically  of 
the  Spaniard  St.  John  of  the  Cross  and  from  the  Span- 
iard's sensual  ecstasies  I  began  to  get  glimpses  of  Pat- 
more's  real  belief.  To  my  aistonishment  he  was  a  mystic 
in  only  one  point.  His  love  for  his  first  wife  was  so 
passionate,  so  overwhelming,  that  it  became  an  inspiration 
to  him,  so  much  so  that  when  on  the  point  of  going  over 
to  Rome  he  hesitated;  how  could  he  reconcile  the  faith 
and  fervor  of  "The  Angel  in  the  House"  with  Catholic 
doctrine  ?  With  ingenuous  casuistry  it  was  suggested  to 
him  that  such  ecstatic  love  was  the  very  soul  of  the 
Catholic  religion  and  at  once  aill  his  difficulties  disap- 
peared. Ever  afterward  he  talked  like  the  Biblical  com- 
mentators of.  the  desire  of  the  soul  for  the  Church,  as 
the  desire  of  the  woman  for  the  man  by  whom  she  reaiches 
fruition,  and  more  than  once  he  told  me  that  this  was 
the  theme  of  his  greatest  and  most  mature  work,  the 
Sponsa  Dei,  which  he  had  worked  at  for  five  or  six  years. 

Some  time  later  in  his  study  he  said  he  had  burned 
this  prose  book,  his  finest  work,  because  it  might  have 
become  a  stumbling  block  to  weaker  brethren:  Father 
Gerard  Hopkins,  an  extraordinary  half-genius,  had 
thought  some  passages  lent  themselves  to  misconstruction, 
as  indeed  they  did,  and  he  had,  therefore,  burned  the 
manuscript. 

That  evening  after  dinner  Patmore's  mood  grew  more 
and  more  confiding  and  intimate.     I  found  he  admired 


200  CONTEMPORARY  PORTRAITS 

Schopenhauer  almost  as  much  as  I  did,  and  this  led  me 
again  to  question  his  mysticism. 

"Your  mind  and  mine,"  he  explained,  "are  antipodes 
one  of  the  other,  and  therefore  reaily  in  close  relation. 
For  example,  you  shocked  me  yesterday  by  talking  of 
the  Song  of  Solomon  in  the  Bible  as  a  mere  love  song ;  a 
,hymn  of  passion  you  called  it.  I  always  think  of  the 
relation  between  husband  and  wife  as  the  relation  of  the 
soul  to  Christ,  an  intimacy  of  supernal  joy,  of  highest 
inspiration ;  I  regard  this  merging  of  one's  self  in  a 
supreme  unity  as  the  passionate  symbol  of  the  love  of  the 
soul  for  God.  This  to  me  is  the  truth  of  truths,  the 
burning  heart  of  the  universe." 

He  said  this  with  ai  sort  of  mystical  rapture,  gripping 
the  arms  of  the  chair  and  chanting  out  the  words  with 
quivering  voice  and  intense  feeling.  ...  A  moment  later 
he  began  again  as  if  to  justify  himself;  "all  women  to  me 
when  unspoiled  by  men  are  wonderfully  good,  angels  that 
make  the  home,  and  I  look  forward  to  reunion  with  ab- 
solute certitude.  If  I  told  you,  if  I  could  tell  you,  that 
she  has  come  to  me  often  with  heavenly  counsels  of 

grace "  he  got  up  and  moved  about  the  room  and 

finally  took  a  cigarette  and  relapsed  into  a  silence  broken 
only  by  an  occasional  sigh. 

This  then  was  the  heart  of  him,  his  secret,  so  to  speak. 
The  phrase  of  TertuUian  has  been  used  about  him — 
"Mens  naturaliter  Catholica" ;  but  I  would  qualify  this  by 
saying  that  it  was  love  for  a  women  led  him  to  love  of 
the  Divine — as  he  said  himself:  "Love  that  grows  from 
one  to  all." 


COWENTRY  PATMORE  201 

"Love  is  my  sin,"  cries  Shapespeare ;  but  love  was  Paft- 
more's  religion,  the  faith  by  which  he  lived  and  died,  and 
no  one  has  sung  the  delirious  idealization  of  first  love 
with  such  impassicmed  ecstasy : 

"His  merits  in  her  presence  grow 

To  maitch  the  promise  in  her  eyes, 
And  round  her  happy  footsteps  blow 
The  authentic  airs  of  Paradise." 
Or  take  his  mysticism  in  prose : 

"The  obligatory  dogmata  of  the  Church  are  only 
the  seeds  of  life.  The  splendid  flowers  and  the 
delicious  fruits  are  all  in  the  corollairies,  which  few, 
besides  the  saints,  pay  any  attention  to.  Heaven  be- 
comes very  intelligible  and  attractive  when  it  is 
discovered  to  be — Woman. 

A  Mohammedan  would  have  applauded  his  creed! 
Patmore,  I  felt,  was  always  too  insubordinate  to  be  a 
representative  Catholic ;  yet  by  virtue  of  a  fine  mind  and 
passionate  devotion  he  stands  with  Cardinal  Newman  in 
the  great  English  Catholic  revival  of  the  nineteenth 
century,  much  as  Dante  stood  six  centuries  earlier,  called 
and  chosen  "to  justify  the  ways  of  God  to  men."  Little 
by  little  I  became  aiware  of  the  fragrance  of  his  nature 
like  an  incense  rising  ever  in  gratitude  and  love  to  Him 
who  had  made  his  paths  the  paths  of  peace. 

I  wonder  when  I  say  Catholic  mystic  if  I  can  get  my 
readers  to  understand  at  all  the  profound  joyful  piety  of 
the  man.  There  was  no  high  poetry  but  what  was  re- 
ligious to  him.  He  would  have  no  work  of  art  that  did 
not  concern  itself  chiefly  with  God  and  man.  He  saw  my 


202  CONTEMPORARY  PORTRAITS 

story  "Montes"  in  the  Fortnightly  Review  and  wrote  me 
a  flaming  condemnation  of  it.  The  execution  was  almost 
perfect,  he  said,  but  the  matter  was  horrible.  I  answered 
him  by  pointing  out  that  my  theme  was  much  the  same 
as  that  of  Othello.  He  accepted  this  at  once,  but  stuck 
to  his  verdict.  No  authority,  not  even  that  of  Shakespeare, 
could  induce  him  even  to  modify  his  judgpnent.  I  give 
it  here ;  in  his  own  words ;  for  I  regard  it  as  intensely 
characteristic : 

Dear  Mr.  Harris: 

The  manner,  the  technical  element,  in  your  three 
papers  seems  to  me  to  be  beyond  criticism.  The  severity 
with  which  you  confine  yourself  to  saying  things,  in- 
stead of  talking  about  them,  is  wholly  admirable.  My 
criticism  must  be  about  the  matter. 

The  "Matador"  as  a  piece  of  mere  representation 

could  scarcely  be  improved  upon.    The  matter  too,  is 

novel  and  striking.  But  I  am  of  the  very  small  minority 

who  will  be  disposed  to  complain  that  it  wants  what  is 

most  essential  in  art,  a  properly  human  interest.    The 

hero  is  a  wild  beast,  the  heroine  a  bitch. 

Another  page  of  the  same  letter  gives  his  views  on  my 

Modern  Idyll,  the  story  of  a  Western  Minister's  love  for 

his  deacon's  wife.    Patmore's  condemnation  is  passionate 

enough  to  prove  that  I  have  not  underrated  his  religious 

fervor  or  overpraised  his  power  of  expression.    He  says 

that  A  Modern  Idyll  is  probably  characteristic  of  America 

and  shows  there  "a  state  of  things  compared  with  which 

Dante's  and  Swedenborg's  hells  are  pleasant  to  contem.- 

plate.    Yet  I  doubt,  nay,  more  then  doubt,  whether  this 


COVENTRY    PATMORE  203 

actual  hell/ this  putrid  pool  irrisdescent,  with  the  cant  of 
pietism  and  steaming  with  profanation  of  divine  names 
and  ideas,  is  not  too  horrible  to  be  exposed  as  you  have 
exposed  it. 

For  hours  after  reading  it,  I  felt  shocked  and  sickened 
as  I  do  not  remember  to  have  been  by  any  other  writing ; 
and  I  cannot  think  that  anything  but  evil  can  come  to  the 
ordinary  reader  of  it. 

Kipling  never  did  anything  better  than  the  "Triptych" ; 
that  is  to  say,  the  kind  of  thing  which  was  thought  worth 
doing  could  not  have  been  done  better. 

Of  course  Kipling  with  his  Tory  Imperialism  appealed 
to  Patmore  intensely;  when  one  objected  to  his  shallow 
cleverness  and  cocksureness  Patmore  replied :  "To  paint 
this  age  of  ours  he  had  to  use  vulgairity  as  a  pigment." 

Patmore's  point  of  view  interested  me  immensely,  for 
it  is  the  attitude  of  latter-day  Christianity.  They  clothe 
the  statues  in  St.  Peter's  with  tin  just  as  the  ladiis  in 
Chicago  are  supposed  to  clothe  the  piano  legs  in  pyjamas. 
And  the  Bishops  of  the  AngHcan  Church  agree  with  the 
Catholic  Cardinals  that  sins  of  the  flesh  are  chiefly  to  be 
reprobated. 

"Tigers  devouring  a  deer  may  be  ai  subject  for  art," 
Patmore  argued,  "but  not  for  great  art.  .  .  .  The  passions, 
desires  and  appetites  which  men  share  with  the  brute 
creation  are  not  a  fitting  subject  for  supreme  presenta- 
tion ;  it  is  only  the  things  that  are  purely  human,  or  if 
you  will,  divine,  that  make  high  art  possible." 

"There    are    long-calculated    revenges,"    I    objected, 


204  CONTEMPORARY  PORTRAITS 

"meannesses  and  envyings,  too,  that  are  purely  human,/ 
yet  viler  than  the  beasts." 

But  he  wouldn't  have  it.  The  human  part  of  man  was 
all  good — one  with  the  divine. 

And  just  as  he  cared  nothing  for  the  sociail  struggle  ot 
our  age,  so  he  cared  little  for  the  star-sown  field  of  space. 
In  one  poem  in  The  Unknown  Eros,  his  finest  work,  he 
has  put  the  two  beliefs  side  by  side : 
"Put  by  the  Telescope! 
Better  without  it  man  may  see, 
Stretch'd  awful  in  the  hush'd  midnight, 
The  ghost  of  his  eternity." 

Fancy  a  sane  man  writing  those  three  words,  "better 
without  it !"  Yet  the  passionate  fervor  of  the  next  three 
lines  explain  if  they  cannot  justify  the  absurdity. 

I  got  to  love  Patmore.  An  optimist  in  ever>'thing  that 
concerned  himself  and  his  private  life,  a  pessimist  with 
regard  to  others  and  to  politics ;  perfect  faith  in  a  Heaven 
of  eternal  bliss,  absolute  disbelief  in  any  progress  in  the 
world  or  even  improvement,  he  would  inveigh  for  hours 
against  what  he  called  the  "rot"  of  the  daily  press  and 
the  vile  lies  it  disseminates  and  then  tell  a  joke  against 
himself  with  the  hugest  delight.  Nor  was  he  ever  prudish 
or  mealy  mouthed ;  he  left  "prudery  to  the  Puritan  half- 
believers,"  he  said,  scornfully. 

Patmore  was  grateful  by  nature  in  all  things  as  few 
men  are.  He  told  me  how  he  had  sought  and  obtained  a 
very  early  copy  of  St.  Thomas  Aquinas  in  seventeen 
volumes  on  vellum,  and  had  given  the  book  to  the  Brit- 
ish Museum. 


COVENTRY    PATMORE  205 

"I  owe  so  much  to  the  Museum,"  he  said  simply,  "I 
was  glad  to  acknowledge  my  immense  debt." 

He  had  the  highest  artistic  standard.  "An  imperfect 
line,"  he  said,  "lies  on  my  conscience  like  a  sin  and  I  never 
rest  until  I  have  got  it  right,  even  if  it  costs  me  years." 

And  he  lived  up  to  this.  Here  is  an  ode  of  his.  De- 
parture, that  I  think  is  of  supreme  quality ;  it  is  evidently 
to  his  first  wife,  Emily,  though  written  years  after  her 
death,  and  is  drenched  in  love  and  pathetic  as  the  slow, 
heavy  tears  of  age  which  always  remind  me  of  the  drops 
of  moisture  that  exude  from  stone: 

DEPARTURE. 
"It  was  not  like  your  great  and  g-racious  ways ! 
Do  you,  that  have  nought  other  to  lament, 
Never,  my  Love,  repent 
Of  how,  that  July  afternoon, 
You  went. 

With  sudden  unintelligible  phrase. 
And  frighten'd  eye, 
Uupon  your  journey  of  so  many  days. 
Without  a  single  kiss,  or  a  good-bye  ? 
I  knew,  indeed,  that  you  were  parting  soon  ; 
And  so  we  sate,  within  the  low  sun's  rays. 
You  whispering  to  me,  for  your  voice  was  weak. 
Your  harrowing  praise. 
Well,  it  was  well, 
To  hear  you  such  things  speak, 
And  I  could  tell 

What  made  your  eyes  a  growing  gloom  of  love. 
As  a  warm  South-wind  sombres  a  March  grove. 


2o6  CONTEMPORARY  PORTRAITS 

And  it  was  like  your  great  and  gracious  ways 

To  turn  your  talk  on  daily  things,  my  Dear, 

Lifting  the  luminous,  pathetic  lash 

To  let  the  laughter  flash, 

Whilst  I  drew  near, 

Because  you  spoke  so  low  that  I  could  scarecly  hear. 

But  all  at  once  to  leave  me  at  the  last, 

More  at  the  wonder  than  the  loss  aghast. 

With  huddled,  unintelligible  phrase 

And  frighten'd  eye. 

Upon  your  journey  of  all  days 

With  not  one  kiss,  or  a  good-bye, 

And  the  only  loveless  look  the  look  with  which  you  pass'd ; 

'Twas  all  unlike  your  g^eat  and  gracious  ways. 

Yet  fine  as  Patmore's  best  work  is  and  of  a  magnificent 
and  austere  simplicity,  it  is  seldom  sensuous  and  pas- 
sionate enough  to  belong  to  the  highest  poetry.  He  never 
comes  near  the  best  of  Goethe  or  Keats  or  Shakespeare. 
His  simplicity  often  degenerates  into  triviality;  his  sen- 
timent is  often  mawkish.  Some  one  said  of  him  once 
wittily :  "Patmore  never  realizes  the  sublime  in  others,  or 
the  ridiculous  in  himself." 

Just  as  some  of  us  think  we  have  outlived  Catholicism, 
so  we  have  certainly  outlived  Patmore's  literary  judg- 
ments. He  never  dreamed  of  a  synthesis  of  Paganism 
and  Christianity,  of  the  reconciliation  of  body  and  soul, 
and  so  the  best  of  our  modem  insight  was  beyond  him. 
He  liked  Carlyle  because  "he  and  I  are  the  only  two  who 
dare  to  dislike  and  despise  Heine,"  and  at  the  same  time 
dismissed  "Carlyle,  Ruskin  and  Thackeray  as  second-rate 


COVENTRY    PATMORE  207 

minds";  indeed,  he  seemed  to  place  Ruskin  above  Car- 
lyle,  which  to  me  was  worse  than  blasphemy. 

With  many  of  Patmore's  literary  opinions  I  was  in 
cordial  agreement.  I,  too,  loved  Coleridge  and  Keats, 
and  thought  little  of  Shelley  and  Clough  and  other  gxxis 
of  popular  idolatry.  Rossetti,  however,  I  esteemed  more 
highly  than  Patmore,  who  scoffed  at  his  scanty  knowl- 
edge of  English  literature  and  summed  him  up  by  de- 
claring' he  was  "tense  and  not  intense" — an  epigram- 
matic misstatement.  In  talk  he  often  raged  against  Ros- 
setti as  a  sort  of  anti-Christ,  though  they  had  once  been 
friendi  a«d  Rossetti  was  one  of  the  first  openly  to  praise 
Patmore's  poetry. 

But  Patmore  was  often  finely  right,  as  when  he  de- 
clared that  Tennyson's  best  work,  though  a  miracle  of 
grace,  was  never  quite  "the  highest  kind" ;  and  he  ex- 
plained this  unconsciously  by  recording  the  fact  that  "his 
(Teooyson's)  incessant  dwellings  upon  trifles  concern- 
ing himself,  generally  snmll  injuries,  real  or  imaginary, 
wa»  childish."  Browning  he  underrated  and  Blake,  too, 
as  much  as  he  overprized  Mrs.  Meynell,  whom  he 
seriously  proposed  for  Poet  Laureate. 

Coventry  Patmore  though  always  masterful,  oft«n 
arbitrary  and  prone  to  contradict,  was  a  staunch  friend, 
a  kind  and  generous  host :  and  above  all,  a  prince  of  com- 
panions to  a  man  of  letters,  a  very  interesting  poet,  a 
noble  husband  and  father.  He  represented  to  me  all  that 
was  best  in  English  life,  and  if  he  showed  the  religious 
spirit  in  wild  exaggeration,  that  too  is  English  and  in- 
tensely characteristic. 


2o8  CONTEMPORARY  PORTRAITS 

To  American  readers  I  must  prove  that  my  praise  of 
his  poetry  and  natural  piety  is  justified,  so  I  give  here 
his  poem  The  Toys  because  of  its  universal  appeal : 

THE  TOYS. 

"My  little  Son,  who  look'd  from  thoughtful  eyes 

And  moved  and  spoke  in  quiet  grown-up  wise, 

Having  my  law  the  seventh  time  disobey'd, 

I  struck  him,  and  dismiss'd 

With  hard  words  and  unkiss'd, 

His  Mother,  who  was  patient,  being  dead. 

Then,  fearing  lest  his  g^ief  should  hinder  sleep, 

I  visited  his  bed. 

But  found  him  slumbering  deep, 

With  darken'd  eyelids,  and  their  lashes  yet 

From  his  late  sobbing  wet. 

And  I,  with  moan. 

Kissing  away  his  tears,  left  others  of  my  own ; 

For,  on  a  table  drawn  beside  his  head, 

He  had  put,  within  his  reach, 

A  box  of  counters  and  a  red-veined  stone, 

A  piece  of  glass  abraded  by  the  beach 

And  six  or  seven  shells, 

A  bottle  with  bluebells 

And  two  French  copper  coins,  ranged  there  with 

careful  art, 
To  comfort  his  sad  heart. 
So  when  that  night  I  pray'd 
To  God  I  wept,  and  said: 
Ah,  when  at  last  we  lie  with  tranced  breath. 


COVENTRY    PATMORE  209 

Not  vexing  Thee  in  death, 

And  Thou  rememberest  of  what  toys 

We  made  our  joys,  ' 

How  weakly  understood, 

Thy  great  commanded  good, 

Then,  fatherly  not  less 

Than  I  whom  Thou  hast  moulded  from  the  clay, 

Thou'lt  leave  Thy  wrath,  and  say, 

'I  will  be  sorry  for  their  childishness.' " 

No  wonder  he  was  confident  in  his  own  pride  of 
place: — many  have  been  complacently  sure  of  the  laurel 
wreath  with  less  reason.  He  wrote  in  1886  as  a  preface 
to  his  complete  works : 

"I  have  written  little,  but  it  is  all  my  best ;  I  have 
never  spoken  when  I  had  nothing  to  say,  nor  spared 
time  or  labor  to  make  my  words  true.  I  have  re- 
spected posterity,  and,  should  there  be  a  posterity 
which  cares  for  letters,  I  dare  hope  that  it  will 
respect  me." 

Before  I  met  him  Patmore  had  married  for  the  third 
time,  and  at  sixty  tasted  "the  full  delight,"  as  he  said,  for 
the  first  time  of  being  a  father.  He  was  too  busy,  too  full 
or  care  and  too  preoccupied  with  love  to  feel  the  relation 
very  keenly  with  his  first  brood ;  but  now  he  was  fond  to 
folly  and  delighted  to  repeat  words  of  the  boy-child,  which 
were  anything  but  remarkable.  Patmore's  ducks  had 
always  been  swans.  He  even  includes  some  of  his  eldest 
son's  poetry  with  his  own  and  used  to  insist  that  it  was 
of  the  highest  quality. 
In  this  sketch  I  seem  to  have  emphasized  *  too  much 


2IO  CONTEMPORARY  PORTRAITS 

Patmore's  aristocratic  attitude  and  beliefs ;  I  should  have 
added  that  he  regarded  the  servants  in  his  own  house 
like  his  children  and  was  not  only  kind  but  generous  in 
his  solicitude  for  the  poor.  After  a  storm  once  at  Hast- 
ings that  wrecked  some  of  the  poorer  dwellings,  he  gave 
with  both  hands  "to  put  the  outcasts  on  their  feet  again," 
as  he  expressed  it.  And  this  he  regarded  as  a  simple  duty ; 
"we  are  all  of  the  household  of  God,"  was  his  phrase. 

And  so  he  lived  and  died ;  on  the  surface  a  mass  of 
contradictions  because  at  odds  with  his  time,  but  in  spirit 
of  a  singular  integrity;  an  aristocrat  by  nature  and  con- 
viction in  a  growing,  all-invading  democracy;  a  lover 
and  Catholic  mystic  in  a  sordid,  scientific  age ;  an  English- 
man who  might  have  respected  a  Rabindranath  Tagore, 
but  would  certainly  have  avoided  friendly  intercourse 
with  him;  an  Englishman,  I  repeat,  full  of  whimsies;  a 
ferocious  individualist  born  out  of  due  season,  yet  lovable 
and  beloved  bv  his  own  even  to  reverence. 


Walt  Whitman 


WALT  WHITMAN 

IS  THERE  any  relation  I  wonder  between  the  size 
of  a  land  and  the  greatness  of  the  men  born  in  it? 
It  seems  to  me  sometimes  as  if  the  small  countries 
produced  the  big  men  and  great  countries  nothing  but 
mediocrities.  Rome,  for  instance,  never  produced  any 
man  at  all  commensurate  with  her  grandeur;  Athens 
and  Jerusalem  on  the  other  hand  gave  birth  to  the 
greatest  of  men. 

Reflecting  in  this  way  it  occurred  to  me  t^at  if  our 
globe  were  ten  times  as  large  as  it  is,  we  men  would 
have  to  be  mere  pigmies;  for  if  we  were  of  our  present 
stature  we  should  be  glued  to  the  ground  by  the  force 
of  gravitation  and  imable  to  advance  at  all  even  by 
steps  which  are  after  all  nothing  but  a  series  of  fallings. 
On  the  other  hand,  if  our  world  were  only  a  tenth  part 
of  its  present  size,  we  men  would  have  to  be  mucii 
larger  in  order  that  gravitation  might  keetp  us  from 
skipping  out  of  the  world's  pull  altogether. 

And  so  there  may  be  some  subtle  and  hitherto  un- 
explained connection  between  small  countries  and  great 
men  and  great  countries  and  little  men;  but  I  soon  re- 
assured myself;  the  relation  can  hardly  be  inexorable, 
for  America  has  produced  three  or  four  great  men — Poe, 
Lincoln,  Emerson  and  Walt  Whitman. 

211 


212  CONTEMPORARY  PORTRAITS 

Or  do  I  now  deceive  myself?  I  think  not.  Whitman 
was  so  (healthy  and  above  all  so  well-^proportioned  that 
he  perhaps  seems  smaller  than  he  was.  At  any  rate, 
this  one  can  say  with  certainty,  he  is  so  far  the  most 
characteristic  American  and  therefore  also  the  most 
original. 

But  many  Americans,  Lowell  among  them,  thought 
Lincoln  "t4ie  first  American,"  and  Whitman  himeelf 
praised  him  enthusiastically.  How  are  we  to  decide 
whether  Lincoln  or  Whitman  was  the  greater?  What 
is  the  criterion?  Whitman  supplies  us  with  the  measur- 
ing rod  and,  strange  to  say,  it  is  also  Goethe's,  and 
historically  approved  I  verily  believe.  Whitman  writes : 
"Strange  as  it  may  seem  tihe  topmost  *proof  of  the  race 
is  its  own  born  poetry  ....  the  stamp  of  entire  and 
finished  greatness  to  any  nation  must  be  withheld  till 
it  has  put  what  it  stands  for  in  the  blossom  of  original 
first-class  poems."  Goethe  goes  even  further  and  of 
course  puts  the  idea  much  better: 

"I  have  often  said  and  will  often  repeat  that  the 

final    cause    and    consummation   of    all    natural    and 

human  activity  is  dramatic  poetry." 

It  may  be  objected  that  these  are  two  writers  agreeing 
that  poetry  is  the  highest  product  of  civilized  man,  but 
men  of  action  might  contradict  them. 

History,  however,  sustains  the  literary  view.  Carthage 
was  rich  and  "prosperous;  Carthage  disappeared  and  left 
no  trace.  Rome  was  mistress  of  the  world  for  centuries ; 
her  language  became  the  language  of  all  civilized 
peoples.     Rome  fell  and  her  place  in  our  esteem  and  in 


WALT  WHITMAN  213 

our  thoughts  bcomes  smaller  and  smaller  as  time  goes 
on,  whereas  the  place  of  Athens  and  Jerusalem  becomes 
bigger  and  bigger  and  already  the  position  of  Jerusalem 
is  higher  t4ian  that  of  Rome  or  even  of  Ainerica  because 
her  poets  and  prophets  were  greater  and  are  still  a  living 
force.  Whoever  then  in  America  has  produced  the 
greatest  poetry  is  the  greatest  man.  I  beHeve  I  am  justi- 
fied, therefore,  in  claiming  pre-eminence  for  Whitman. 

There  is  an  amusing  little  side-light  on  Whitman  to 
be  won  'here.  Scarcely  has  he  established  the  fact  to 
his  own  satisfaction  that  the  highest  purpose  of  civiliza- 
tion is  the  production  of  noble  poetry  when  he  goes  on 
to  talk  of  Scott  and  Tennyson,  who,  like  Shakespeare, 
exhale  that  principle  of  caste  which  "we  Americans  (have 
come  on  earth  to  destroy."  Not  to  produce  high  poetry 
then  but  to  destroy  the  spirit  of  caste  is  the  great  pur- 
pose of  America.  At  his  inspired  moments  Whitman 
knew  better;  again  and  again  in  his  prose  he  recurs  to 
tihe  reverence  we  owe  great  men,  to  the  ibenefit  we  all 
receive  from  that  sacred  admiration.  If  by  the  spirit 
of  caste  Whitman  meant  the  adoration  of  wealth,  or 
birth,  or  manners,  or  dress,  or  all  of  these,  then  indeed 
we  may  be  said  to  have  come  here  to  destroy,  but  the 
false  gods  are  only  dethroned  in  the  interests  of  the 
true  god,  and  Wihitman  and  Goethe  are  certainly  justi- 
fied in  insisting  that  the  poet  and  prophet  will  be  more 
and  more  hig'hly  esteemed  as  man  moves  up  the  spiral 
of  growth. 

Great  men  are  good  comipanions,  exhilarating  and 
delightful  as  morning  sunshine;  their  shortcomings  even 


214  CONTEMPORARY  PORTRAITS 

predict  the  future,  for  all  imperfections  forecast  fulfil- 
ment and  our  faults  pre- figure  better  men  yet  to  be  born. 
But  great  men  are  a  little  difficult  to  know ;  even  their 
lovers,  to  w<hom  they  give  themselves  freely,  only  come 
to  understanding  little  by  little.  They  are  of  infinite 
diversity;  they  say  with  Whitman — 

Do  I  contradict  myself? 

Very   well  then   I   contradict  myself; 

(I  am  large,  I  contain  multitudes). 

They  aire  strange,  too,  and  defy  classification;  at  one 
moment  the  son  of  Man,  at  another  the  son  of  God; 
they  are  mysterious,  ever  conscious  that  they  are  a 
mystery,  even  to  themselves,  as  indeed  we  all  are. 

But  as  a  rule  in  youth  t^hey  smack  of  the  soil  and  be- 
tray the  school,  show  us  their  beginnings  and  growth ; 
the  books  they  read  and  did  not  read.  If  you  know  the 
language  they  use  and  their  time  and  condition,  you 
have  the  key  to  them. 

Tfti'is  man  W'hitman  has  few  obvious  marks  of  the 
school  or  of  reading  or  of  condition;  he  abjures  all 
signs  of  servitude. 

"You  shall  no  longer  take  things  at  second  or  third 
hand,  nor  look  through  the  eyes  of  the*  dead,  nor  feed 
on  the  spectres  of  books. 

"You  shall  not  look  through  my  eyes  eitlher,  nor  take 
things  from  me. 

"You  shall  listen  to  all  sides  and  filter  them  from 
yourself." 


WALT  WHITMAN  215 

He  asserts  himself  loudly: 

"Clear  and  sweet  is  my  soul 

Welcome  is  every  organ  and  attribute  of  me  and  of 
any  man  healthy  and  clean." 

Whitrrftn  is  a  pure  man  and  as  strange  as  the  new 
continent  where  he  was  born.  He  is  large  like  his  land 
and  ridh  in  many  ways,  birt  incult  for  the  most  part  and 
undeveloped,  a  great  uncut  gem  with  one  small  facet 
polished  perfectly  at  if  to  show  the  supernal  radiance 
of  it. 

For  many  years  this  strangeness,  this  want  of  culti- 
vation, this  untamed  exu'berance,  the  waste  and  wildness 
as  of  desert  and  mountain  range,  put  me  off;  I  regarded 
Emerson  as  the  greatest  American;  but  Bmerson  was 
bookish  and  a  Puritan,  and  as  I  grew  older  I  came  to 
think  more  of  the  body  and  its  claims  and  pleasures  and 
Emerson's  thin-bloocled  judgments  became  ridiculous  to 
me.  The  Frendh  proverb  "bon  animal  bott  homme"  im- 
posed itself  and  the  Englisb  prudery  and  conventionalism 
in  Emerson  distressed  me  as  something  worse  than  pro- 
vincial, as  a  positive  deformity,  and  I  turned  with  de- 
light to  Whitman's  broad  humanity : 

"I  am  the  poet  of  the  body  and  I  am  the  poet  of  the 

Soul 

Walt  Whitman,  a  kosmos,  of  Manhattan  t»he  Son, 
Turbulent,  fleshy,  sensual,  eating,  drinking  and  breeding. 
No  sentimentalist,  no  stander  above  men  and  women  or 

apart  from  them, 
No  more  mode&t  than  immodest. 


2i6  CONTEMPORARY  PORTRAITS 

Without  shame  the  man  I  like  knows  and  avows  the 

deliciousness  of  his  sex, 
Without  shame  the  woman  I  like  knows  and  avows  hers." 

I  began  to  do  these  penportraits  with  the  fixed  resolve 
only  to  write  of  men  and'  women  of  importance  whom 
I  had  known  personally,  and  never  to  forget  that  one 
touch  of  soul-revealing  drawn  from  intimate  personal 
knowledge  was  worth  pages  of  critical  appreciation.  The 
future  will  do  its  own  criticising  and  its  own  appreciat- 
ing; but  generations  still  unborn  must  be  grateful  for 
just  that  personal  knowledge  of  the  "Shining  Ones"  which 
only  those  who  knew  them  in  the  flesh,  can  supply. 

Now  I  never  knew  Whitman:  I  mean  by  that,  I  saw 
him  in  passing,  heard  him  speak — in  Philadelphia  in  the 
winter  of  1876  I  believe  it  was ;  b'ut  hardly  got  from  him 
more  than  an  "Ay,  Ay"  to  acknowledge  understanding; 
yet  an  impression  of  the  simplicity  of  the  man  remains 
with  me  and  of  his  sanity  and  health  fulness. 

He  came  on  the  platform  slowly  as  if  since  his  stroke 
he  found  walking  a  little  difficult;  he  showed  his  age, 
too,  in  greying  beard  and  hair;  but  his  eyes  were 
fine — steadfast,  clear — and  he  had  a  certain  air  with 
him,  the  effect  of  goodly  height,  strong  erect  figure  and 
greatness  of  nature.  He  certainly  owed  nothing  to  dress 
for  his  unstarched  shirt  was  open  at  the  neck,  his  waist 
coat  persisted  in  rucking  up  and  his  short-coat  stuck  out 
behind,  making  me  smile  at  his  likeness  to  a  large  Cochin 
fowl.  But  the  whole  impression  was  dignified,  imposing; 
his  voice  was  clear,  his  utterance  deliberate,  slow;  his 


WALT  WHITMAN  217 

choice  of  words  seemed  to  me  good ;  a  big  man  thought- 
ful, clear  of  eye  and  human,  friendly  to  all. 

Even  this  outline-sketch  may  be  colored  a  little  by 
later  knowledge  won  from  reading.  However,  I  give  it 
for  what  it  is  worth ;  having  seen  him  in  the  flesh  and 
heard  his  voice  help  me  to  realize  him,  and  Ihis  large, 
untutored  manhood. 

In  the  same  early  poems,  I  have  already  used,  Whit- 
man makes  his  full  confession  in  two  lines: 

"I  believe  in  the  flesh  and  the  appetites, 
Seeing,  hearing,  feeling  are  miracles  and  each  part  and 
tag' of  me  is  a  miracle." 

This  might  have  been  written  by  Goethe.  Here  for 
the  first  time  we  meet  an  Anglo-Saxon  who  has  cut  him- 
self free  from  Puritanism  and  prudery  without  denying 
the  mysteries. 

In  the  fall  of  '81  shortly  before  Emerson's  death, 
Whitman  recalls  the  fact  that  "twenty^ne  years  before 
on  a  bright  sharp  February  midday  I  walked  with  Emer- 
son, tlhen  in  his  prime,  keen,  physically  and  morally 
magnetic,  armed  at  every  point,  and  when  he  chose, 
wielding  the  emotional  just  as  well  as  the  intellectual. 
During  those  two  hours  he  was  the  talker  and  I  the  lis- 
tener. It  was  an  argument,  reconnoitering,  review, 
attack,  and  pressing  home  (like  an  army  corps  in  order, 
artillery,  cavalry,  infantry),  of  all  that  could  be  said 
against  that  part  (and  a  main  part)  in  the  construction 
of  my  poems,  "Children  of  Adam."  More  precious  tiian 
gold  to  me  that  dissertation — it  afforded  me,  ever  after, 


2i8  CONTEMPORARY  PORTRAITS 

this  strange  and  paradoxical  lesson;  each  point  of  Emer- 
son's statement  was  unanswerable,  no  judge's  charge  er^r 
more  complete  or  convincing,  I  could  never  hear  ibe 
points  better  put — and  then  I  felt  down  in  my  soul  the 
clear  and  unmistakable  conviction  to  disobey  all  and  pur- 
sue my  own   way. 

"  'What  have  you  to  say  to  such  things  ?'  said  E., 
pausing  in  conclusion.  'Only  that  while  I  can't  answer 
tttifem  all,  I  feel  more  than  ever  to  adhere  to  my  own 
theory,  and  exemplify  it,"  was  my  candid  response. 

"Whereupon  we  went  and  had  a  good  dinner  at  the 
American  House.  And  thenceforward  I  never  wavered 
or  was  touched  with  qualms  (as  I  confess  I  had  been 
two  or  three  times  before)." 

The  'poems  under  this  heading  "The  Children  of 
Adam,"  are  all  devoted  to  the  sex-urge  and  thave  earned 
Whitman  the  reproach  in  his  own  country  and  in  lesser 
degree  in  England,  too,  of  being  pornographic.  From  a 
French  or  Latin  or  Russian  standpoint  the  poems  are 
rather  reticent  and  are  indeed  sadly  to  seek  in  several 
ways.  But  even  an  Anglo-Saxon  before  objecting  to  them 
might  have  considered  the  fact  that  they  only  fill  fifteen 
pages  out  of  over  four  ftiundred  or  less  than  four  per 
cent,  of  the  whole,  which  is  surely  a  disproportionately 
small  amount  to  be  given  in  any  full  life  to  things  sexual. 
No  wonder  then  that  Emerson's  arguments  instead  of 
convincing  Whitman  of  wrongdoing  filled  him  with  the 
conviction  that  he  had  been  right  and  removed  all  faintect 
doubts  on  tthe  matter,  or  "qualms"  as  he  calls  them  puri- 
tanically. 


WALT  WHITMAN  219 

He  sings  "the  body  electric,"  and  "a  woman  waits  for 
me,"  and  "the  ache  of  amorous  love,"  and  yet  I  wouli 
call  him  ill-equipped  on  this  side  and  uninteresting.  He 
is  frank,  indeed,  outspoken  even,  but  astoundingly  super- 
ficial— the  heights  and  depths  of  passion  have  not  been 
plumbed  by  him.  Turn  to  "Solomon's  Song,"  in  the 
Bible  and  compare  the  two  and  you  will  find  that  the 
Jewisih  singer  is  infinitely  Whitman's  superior.  Take  the 
verses : 

I  sleep;  but  my  heart  waketh;  it  is  the  voice  of  my 
beloved  that  knocketh,  saying  open  to  me,  my  sister, 
my  love,  my  dove,  my  unde  filed,  for  my  hair  is  wet 
with  dew  and  my  locks  with  drops  of  the  night. 

I  don't  need  to  quote  a  verse  or  two  more  in  order  to 
sound  the  deeps  of  desire ;  but  let  these  two  phrases  from 
the  heights  be  further  witness: 

"Thy  lips  are  like  a  thread  of  scarlet"  .  .  .  and  thy 
love  "terrible  as  an  army  with  banners." 
The  dread  that  always  accompanies  supreme  passion 
was  never  more  splendidly  rendered.  It  makes  everything 
in  Whitman  on  this  subject  <petty  and  slight.  And  this 
is  the  only  real  objection  to  b'e  urged  against  "The  Chil- 
dren of  Adam"  poems  (an  objection  which  Emerson 
surely  never  dreamed  of),  that  they  contain  no  new,  great 
word  on  the  matter,  are  in  fact  commonplace  and  as  such 
unwortihy  of  the  eternal  theme. 

Think  of  the  threnody  of  the  Jewish  song: 

"Many  waters  cannot  quench  love;  neither  can  the 
floods  drown  it;  if  a  man  would  give  all  the  substance 


220  CONTEMPORARY  PORTRAITS 

of  his  house  for  love,  it  would  utterly  be  contemned  . . . 

And  then  the  conclusion  of  the  whole  matter: 

"For  love  is  strong  as  deat^h  .  .  .  jealousy  is  cruel  as 

the  grave." 

It  is  not  for  their  love-songs  that  the  English  and 
Americans  are  likely  lo  be  heard  in  the  Court  of  Nations. 
And  if  they  ever  sought  a  hearing  on  this  count  they 
would  do  well  to  shoose  Shakespeare  or  Swinburne  (he 
wrote  "In  flhe  Orchard"  and  "The  Leper")  to  represent 
them  rather  than  Whitman.  But  prudery  in  the  United 
States  has  the  malignity  of  an  ague-fit  and  Americans 
shiver  and  burn  with  it  alternately  and  are  proud  of  its 
virulence,  as  children  are  proud  of  a  physical  deformity. 

And  accordingly  Whitman  fared  ill  at  their  hands, 
for  many  years  after  the  publication  of  "Tiie  Leaves 
of  Grass,"  till  the  day  of  his  death  indeed  and  long 
afterwards,  his  name  was  taboo  in  polite  society,  and 
in  sipite  of  his  lofty  democratic  and  religious  utterances 
his  book  has  never  become  popular  in  these  States. 
^Whitman's  high  position  in  the  world  of  letters  to-day 
has  been  given  to  him  by  foreign  masters  and  he  has 
been  imposed  on  the  American  public  by  their  eulogies, 
one  more  prophet  fiot  without  honor  save  in  his  own 
country  and  amid  his  own  kin. 

Whitman  himself  testifies,  without  taint  of  bitterness, 
indeed  with  a  noble  unconcerned  acceptance,  to  the  com- 
pleteness of  the  American  boycott.  Shortly  before  his 
death  in  the  summer  of  his  seventy-second  year  he 
wrote : 

"All  along  from  i860  to  '91,  many  of  the  pieces  in 


WALT  WHITMAN  221 

'Leaves  of  Grass'  and  its  annexes,  were  first  sent  to 
piiblishers  or  ma.^azine  editors  before  being  printed 
in  the  L.  and  were  pererraptorily  rejected  by  them,  and 
sent  back  to  their  author.  The  'Eidolons'  was  sent 
back  by  Dr.  H.,  of  'Scribner's  Monthly'  with  a  lengthy, 
very  insulting  and  contemptuous  letter.  'To  the  Sun- 
Set  Breeze'  was  rejected  by  the  editor  of  'Harper's 
Monthly'  as  being  'an  improvisation'  only.  'On,  On, 
Ye  Jocund  Twain'  was  rejected  by  the  'Century' 
editor  as  being  personal  merely.  Several  of  the  pieces 
went  the  rounds  of  all  the  monthlies,  to  be  thus  sum- 
marily rejected. 

"June,   '90.    The rejects  and   sends  back  my 

little  poem,  so  I  am  now  set  out  in  the  cold  by  every 
big  magazine  and  publisher,  and  may  as  well  under- 
stand and  admit  it — Which  is  just  as  well,  for  I  find 
I  am  palpably  losing  my  sigfit  and  ratiocination." 
And  this  ostracism  is  the  more  extraordinary  because 
Whitman  is  a  typical  American  in  faults  as  in  virtues. 
For  example,  he  is  perpetually  praising  "Democracy" 
and  the  "average"  man;  but  w'hen  challenged  on  the 
matter  he  has  to  admit  that  the  Ahierican  democracy 
so  far  is  a  rank  failure  and  the  average  man  even  in  this 
blessed  land  leaves  a  great  deal  to  be  desired: 

"For  my  part,  I  would  alarm  and  caution  even 
the  political  and  business  reader,  and  to  the  utmost 
extent,  against  the  prevailing  delusion  that  the  estab- 
lishment of  free  political  institutions,  and  intellectual 
smartness,  with  general  good  order,  physical  plenty, 
industry,  etc.  (desirable   and  precious   advantages   as 


222  CONTEMPORARY  PORTRAITS 

they  all  are)  do,  of  themselves,  determine  and  yield 
to  our  experiment  of  democracy  the  fruitage  of 
success." 

And  though  a  little  later  he  quotes  Lincoln's  famous 
apothegm  "Government  of  the  people,  by  the  people,  for 
the  people,"  with  high  approval,  in  reality  he  is  not 
blinded  by  words  or  sounding  phrases ;  he  writes : 

"Genuine  belief  seems  to  have  left  us.  The  under- 
lying principles  of  the  States  are  not  honestly  believed 
in  (for  all  this  hectic  glow  and  tihese  melodramatic 
screamings)  nor  is  humanity  itself  believed  in.  What 
penetrating  eye  does  not  everywhere  see  through  the 
mask  ?  The  spectacle  is  appalling.  We  live  in  a  atmo- 
spere  of  hypocrisy  throughout.  The  men  believe  not 
in  the  women,  nor  the  women  in  t^e  men.  A  scorn- 
ful superciliousness  rules  in  literature." 
And  he  sums  up: 

"I  say  that  our  New  World  democracy,  however 
great  a  success  in  uplifting  the  masses  out  of  their 
sloughs,  in  materialistic  development  products,  and  in 
a  certain  highly-decorative  superficial  popular  intel- 
lectuality, is,  so  far,  an  almost  complete  failure  in  its 
social  aspects,  and  in  really  grand  religious,  moral, 
literary  and  esthetic  results.  In  vain  do  we  march  with 
unprecedented  strides  to  empire  so  colossal,  outvying 
the  antique,  beyond  Alexander's,  beyond  the  proudest 
sway  of  Rome.  In  vain  'have  we  annexed  Texas,  Cali- 
fornia, Alaska,  and  reach  north  for  Canada  and  south 
for  Cuba.   It  is  as  if  we  were  somehow  being  endowed 


WALT  WHITMAN  223 

with  a  vast  and  more  and  more  thorougiily-appointed 

body,  and  then  left  with  little  or  no  soul." 

No  wiser  words  of  warning  have  yet  been  written  in 
America. 

Whitman  is  hypnotized  by  his  love  of  "democracy" 
and  the  "average"  man ;  yet  he  cannot  but  see  t/hat  some- 
thing is  wrong  with  the  formula  and  the  creature. 

"Will  the  time  hasten,"  he  cries,  "when  fatherhood 
and  motherhood  shall  become  a  science — and  ihe  noblest 
science?  To  our  model — the  portrait  of  personality 
needed  in  these  States — ^to  our  model  a  clear-blooded, 
stror^-fibred  physique  is  indispensable."  He  waits,  too, 
"an  erect  attitude,  a  complexion  showing  the  best  blood, 
a  voice  whose  sound  outvies  music ;  eyes  of  calm  and 
steady  gaze,  yet  capable  also  of  flashing."  Plainly  Whit- 
man's "average"  man  is  a  superman  and  his  democracy 
a  Utopia  that  in  reach  of  imagination  would  shame  Sir 
TMiomas  More's. 

It  might  plausibly  be  argued  that  in  spite  of  himself 
Whitman  is  an  aristocrat  from  head  to  foot  and  demands 
physical,  mental  and  moral  perfection  from  all  citizens. 

On  the  other  hand,  it  is  only  fair  to  admit  that  Whit- 
man's passion  for  equality  holds  in  itself  a  forecast  of 
the  future  and  its  own  justification.  Who  can  doubt  now 
in  this  marvellous  year  of  1919  that  we  are  moving  to- 
wards equa^lity,  destined  gradually  to  realize  it  more 
and  more  in  our  institutions  and  in  our  lives,  and  with 
it  the  brotherhood  of  man.  It  seems  to  me  significant 
that  Whitman's  poem  "To  Him  That  Was  Crucified" 
as  one  brother  and  lover  to  another  should  be  immediate- 


224  CONTEMPORARY  PORTRAITS 

ly   followed  by  the  verses  to  the  "Felons  on  Trial  in 
Courts"  and  prostitutes  w<liich  ends  in  this  way: 
"Lusts  and  wickedness  are  acceptable  to  me, 
I  walk  with  delinquents  with  passionate  love, 
I  feel  I  am  of  them — I  belong  to  those  convicts  and  pros- 
titutes myself, 
And  henceforth  I  will  not  deny  them — for  how  can  I 
deny  myself?" 
In  just  this  spirit  Debs  talked  the  other  day  on  his 
trial :  "As  long  as  one  man  is  in  prison,"  he  said,  "I  am 
in  prison,"  and  we  all  thriilled  to  the  eternal  trutHi. 
Whitman's  humanity,  too,  knows  no  exclusions : 
"Not  till  the  sun  excludes  you,  do  I  exdude  you." 
He  looks  out  upon  "laborers,  the  poor  and  Negroes" 
with  the  same  sense  of  kinship;  he  is  human  to  the  red 
heart  of  him  and  full  of  love;  Mood-brother  to  all  men 
born.  And  tlhis  sense  of  universal  sympathy  and  brother- 
hood is  as  fine  as  anything  in  him  and  does,  as  he  saw, 
differentiate    him    as    an    American    singer    from    all 
European  singers  as  yet,  conferring  on  him  a  singular 
distinction.    But  I  cannot,  alas,  say  even  this  much  with- 
out lamenting  in  the  same  breath  the  fact  that  the  ma- 
jority of   Americans   of  this  time   appear  to  Ihave   no 
inkling  of  their  high  calling,  for  they  have  been  unaWe 
even  to  maintain  the  legal  rights  of  free  men  handed 
down  to  them  through  half  a  dozen  generations  and  pro- 
tected ex*plicitly  by  the  Constitution.    The  torturing  of 
conscientious  objectors,  too,  in  our  prisons  during  the 
war,  remains  as  an  indelible  stain  on  American  civilaza- 
tion. 


WALT  WHITMAN  225 

W»hitman,  too,  has  his  faults  and  in  especial  a  shallow 
optimism  which  is  peculiarly  American;  he  says  that 
"there  are  no  liars  or  lies  at  all,"  but  that  "all  is  truth 
without  exception,"  and  all  is  health  too,  I  presume, 
especiailly  to  those  dying  untimely  of  foul  inherited  dis- 
eases ! 

Again  and  again,  too,  his  critical  faculty  betrays  him. 
'I  can't  imagine  any  better  luck  befalling  these  States 
for  a  poetical  beginning  and  initiation  than  has  come 
from  Emerson,  Longfellow,  Bryant,  and  Whittier,  Emer- 
son to  me  stands  unmistakably  at  the  head,  but  for  the 
others  I  am  at  a  loss  where  to  give  any  precedence.  Each 
illlustrious,  each  rounded,  each  distinctive  .  .  .  Long- 
fellow .  .  .  competing  with  the  singers  of  Europe  on 
their  own  ground  and  with  one  exception,  better  and 
finer  work  than  any  of  them." 

The  exception,  if  you  please,  being  Tennyson,  as 
Whitman  tells  us  elsewhere.  Was  there  ever  such  critic- 
ism? The  one,  authentic,  American  poet,  Poe,  omitted 
altogether  and  Longfellow  declared  superior  to  Brown- 
ing, Swinburne  and  Arnold  in  England,  to  Hugo,  Ver- 
laine  and  Sully  Prudhomme  in  France,  to  Carducci  in 
Italy;  Longfellow,  who  is  not  worthy  of  being  named 
witJh  the  least  of  these  immortals.  Bryant  and  Whittier 
too  "iilustrious  arid  distinctive."  It  needed  only  one 
phrase  to  reach  bathos  and  we  get  it :  "Shakespeare  as 
depicter  of  the  passions  is  excelled  by  the  best  old  Greeks 
as  Aeschylus." 

And  with  these  blunderings  I  must  set  down  also  the 
dreadful  neologisms  which  stain  and  disfigure  most  of 


226  CONTEMPORARY  PORTRAITS 

his  work  such  as,  "promulge,"  "eclaircise,"  "dehveress," 
•'partiaJist,"  "diminute,"  "ecleve,"  "acceptress"  "exalte," 
"finale,"  "dolce,"  "affetuoso,"  "ostent,"  "inure,"  "ef- 
fuse," "impertunbe,"  "buster,"  "Americanos,"  "rapport," 
and  hundreds  of  similar  blots  upon  tSie  page. 

Not  one  of  these  newcomers  seems  to  have  gained  or 
deserved  rights  of  naturalization  in  the  language,  and  if 
one  ccmipares  them  to  those  coined  by  Coleridge,  such 
as  "atavism"  and  "atavistic,"  which  do  satisfy  a  need 
and  enrich  the  common  treasure-store,  one  will  quickly 
realize  the  advantage  of  a  thorough  education. 

Even  When  Whitman  has  a  great  theme  and  feels 
poignantly  he  perpetually  hurts  us  with  some  word  that 
is  curiously  inept  and  out  of  <place.  For  instance,  his 
dirge  on  Lincoln.  "O  Captain,  my  captain,"  has  this  line 
in  it : 

"For  you  bouquets  and  ribbon'd  wreaths — for  you  the 
shores  a-crowding." 

How  he  could  have  written  "bouquets"  here  without 
feeling  the  sihock  and  incongruity,  I  can't  imagine. 

It  seems  to  me  that  his  love  of  so-called  "free  verse" 
springs  from  the  same  source ;  he  not  only  resents  bond- 
age of  any  sort,  but  he  is  not  highly  articulate,  not  a 
master  of  his  craft,  a  born  singer.  True,  he  has  used  free 
verse  now  and  then  most  happily;  but  for  each  trium- 
phant success  'how  many  comparative  failures! 

And  both  before  and  after  him  others  have  used  free- 
dom with  happier  results.  Again  and  again  in  the  Bible, 
for  instance,  as  in  fthe  13th  chapter  of  Corinthians,  and 
the  last  chapter  of  Ecclesiastes,  and  elsewhere  prose  has 


WALT  WHITMAN  227 

yielded  as  magical  effects  as  have  ever  been  attained  by 
any  poetry  bond  or  free.  Whitman's  continual  use  of  free 
verse  has  founded  a  school  and,  notably  in  America,  has 
produced  imitators  who  have  not  even  studied  the  Biblical 
methods.  There  is  no  special  virtue  in  rhythm ;  but  nearly 
all  the  liighesjt  utterances  in  the  world's  literature  have 
been  musical,  and  free  verse  when  it  is  unmusical  is  even 
more  repulsive  than  halting  or  ill-^sounding  prose. 

On  this  point  I  almost  agree  with  Ruskin  who  wrote : 

"Irregular  measure  (introduced  to  my  great  regret  in 
its  chief  wilfulness  by  Coleridge)  is  the  calamity  of 
modern  poetry." 

Of  course  one  must  remember  that  in  talking  of  litera- 
ture Whitman  always  takes  the  position  that  verbal  ex- 
cellence is  of  no  moment,  mere  filigree  and  ornament; 
again  and  again  he  affirms  that  t*ie  deep  purpose  of  his 
own  poetry  and  indeed  of  all  poetry  is  the  religious  pur- 
pose. He  goes  further  here  than  even  Emerson  or  Car- 
lyle;  he  says: 

"There  can  be  no  sane  and  complete  personality,  nor 

any  grand  and  electric  nationality  without  the  stock  (  ! ) 

element  of  refligion  imbuing  all  the  other  elements  .... 

so  there  can  be  no  jwetry  worth  the  name  wit<hou,t  that 

element   (religion)  behind  all." 

But  he  is  not  content  with  vague  generalities  on  this 
matter;  "I  am  not  sure,"  he  says  in  the  preface  to  the 
Centennial  Edition  of  his  works  in  1876  when  he  was 
already  58  years  of  age :  "I  am  not  sure  but  the  last  in- 
closing sublimation  of  race  or  poem  is  wfliat  it  thinks 
of  death." 


228  CONTEMPORARY  PORTRAITS 

And  he  goes  further : 

"In  my  opinion  it  is  no  less  than  this  idea  of  immor- 
tality, above  all  other  ideas,  that  is  to  enter  into  and  vivify 
and  give  crowning  religious  stamp  of  democracy  in  the 
New  World." 

And  as  if  this  were  not  enough  he  proceeds  to  tell  us 
that  "it  was  originally  my  intention  after  chanting  in 
'Leaves  of  Grass'  the  songs  of  tfhe  body  and  existence 
to  compose  a  further  and  equally  needed  volume  based 
on  those  convictions  of  perpvetuity  and  conservation  which 
.  .  .  make  the  unseen  sou'l  govern  absolutely  at  last." 

"I  mean  to  exhibit  .  .  .  the  same  ardent  and  fully  ap- 
pointed personality  .  .  .  with  cheerful  face,  estimating 
death  not  at  all  as  the  cessation  but  as  somehow  w<hat  I 
feel  it  must  be,  the  entrance  upon  by  far  the  greatest  part 
of  existence  and  something  that  life  is  at  least  as  much 
for  as  it  is  for  itself. 

"But  the  full  construction  of  such  a  book  is  beyond  my 
powers  and  must  remain  for  some  bard  in  the  future. 

"Meanwhile  not  entirely  to  give  the  go-by  to  my  original 
plan. ...  I  end  my  books  with  thoughts  or  radiations  from 
thoughts  on  death,  immortality  and  a  free  entrance  into 
the  spiritual  world." 

And  in  his  famous  "Passage  to  India,"  he  cries : 
"O  daring  joy  but  safe !  are  they  not  all  the  seas  of  God  ? 
O,  farther,  farther,  farther  sail!" 

It  is  no  vain  'boast  of  his  that  iht  "brawn  of  'Leaves 
of  Grass'  is  thoroughly  spiritualized  everywhere. 


WALT  WHITMAN  229 

He  is  convinced  of  the  necessity  of  this  for  "the  Moral 
is  the  purport  and  lasting  intelligence  of  all  Nature."  .  .  . 
though  "there  is  absolutely  nothing  of  the  moral  in  t^e 
works  or  laws  of  Nature." 

And  to  make  "full  confession"  he  adds: 

"I  also  sent  out  'Leaves  of  Grass'  to  arouse  and  set 
flowing  in  men's  and  women's  hearts,  young  and  old, 
endless  streams  of  living,  puflsating  love  and  friendship, 
directly  from  them  to  myself  now  and  ever."  He  declares 
that  this  affection  and  sympathy  will  yet  bring  about  the 
perfect  union  of  all  the  States. 

Thinking  it  a:ll  over,  I  feel  that  Whitman's  untpopularity 
in  America  is  almost  as  difficult  to  explain  as  Whistler's. 
When  writing  of  Whistler  I  drew  attention  to  the  fact 
that  his  overwhelming  love  of  beauty  and  his  avoidance 
of  anything  coarse  or  mean,  sordid  or  ugly,  shcxt.d  have 
made  him  an  immediate  favorite  in  both  Engfbnd  and 
America.  It  had  not  that  effect,  strange  to  say ;  and  so 
when  I  think  of  Whitman's  ihealthy  animalism  and  the 
small  space  he  gives  it  in  his  work  and  his  passionate 
devotion  to  the  implicit  morality  of  things,  to  religion  and 
even  to  immortality,  I  feel  that  he  of  all  men  should  have 
been  immediately  popular  in  America ;  he  is  far  and  away 
the  most  dharacteristic  product  of  this  country;  why  did 
his  countrymen  decry  his  gos»pel  and  reject  him?  His 
purpose  is  their  purpose,  his  belief  their  bdief,  his  hope 
their  hope! 

Let  us  look  at  his  best  for  a  moment,  for  after  all  it 
is  in  his  higJhest  achievement  even  more  than  in  his  short- 
comings that  we  discover  the  soul  of  a  man. 


230  CONTEMPORARY  PORTRAITS 

The  "Prayer  of  Columbus"  is  Whitman's  best  work; 
by  much,  I  think,  the  noblest  poem  yet  produced  in  these 
States.    There  is  hardly  a  weak  verse  in  the  whole  litany 
and  tfriere  are  lines  in  it  of  pure  sutflimity: 
"O  I  am  sure  they  really  came  from  Thee 
The  urge,  the  ardor,  the  unconqueraible  will, 
The  potent,  felt,  interior  command,  stronger  than  words, 
A  message  from  the  Heavens  whispering  to  me  even  in 

sleep, 
Tiiese  sped  me  on. 

"The  end  I  know  not,  it  is  all  in  Thee, 

Or  small  or  great  I  know  not — haply  what  broad  fields, 

wSiat  lands. 
Haply  the  brutish   measureless   human   undergrowth   I 

know, 
Transplanted  there  may  rise  to  stature,  knowfledge  worthy 

Thee, 
Haply  the  swords  I  know  may  there  indeed  be  turn'd  to 

reaping-tools, 
Haply  the  lifeless  cross  I  know,  Europe's  dead  cross,  may 

bud  and  blossom  there. 

One  effort  more,  my  altar  this  blleak  sand ; 

That  Thou  O  God,  my  life  hast  lighted, 

With  ray  of  light,  steady,  ineffable,  vouchsafed  of  Thee, 

Light  rare  untellable,  lighting  the  very  light. 

Beyond  all  signs,  descriptions,  languages; 

For  that  O  God,  be  it  my  latest  word,  here  on  my  knees, 

Old,  poor,  artd  paralyzed,  I  thank  Thee. 


WALT  WHITMAN  231 

Ever  since  my  first  reading  of  Whitman  I  had  iield  that 
this  was  his  best ;  but  I  had  no  proof  that  he  thought  so 
till  the  other  day.  In  order  to  picture  him  I  had  to  read 
both  'his  poetry  and  his  prose  through  from  beginning  to 
end.  His  very  last  poem  is  "A  Thought  of  Columbus,"  a 
greeting  to  him  across  the  sea  of  time,  soul-plaudits  for 
him  and  acclamation  of  his  great  achievement.  The  very 
last  page  of  ihis  prose  too,  his  final  word  and  testament 
to  his  readers  and  to  America  is  the  confession  of  the 
same  faith  he  put  in  the  mouth  of  Columbus  in  the 
"Prayer"  poem  and  is  clothed  in  the  self  same  words. 
It  must  be  accepted  then  that  the  faith  he  attributes  to 
Columbus  is  his  own  fait<h  and  the  hope,  his  hope;  he 
writes : 

"The  Higliest  said:  'Don't  let  us  begin  so  low — 
isn't  our  range  too  coarse — too  gross?  .  .  .  The  Soul 
answered :  No,  not  when  we  consider  what  it  is  all 
for — the  end  involved  in  Time  and   Space. 

"Essentially  my  own  printed  records,  all  my  vol- 
umes,  are   doubtless  but   off-hand    utterances   of   my 
Personality,  spontaneous,  following  implicitly  the  in- 
scrutable  command,   dominated   by   that    Personality, 
vaguely,  even  if  decidedly,  and  with  little  or  nothing 
of  plan,  art,  erudition,  etc.     If  I  have  chosen  to  hold 
the  reins,  the  mastery,  it  has  mainly  been  to  g^ve  the 
way,  the  power,  the  road,  to  the  invisible  steeds." 
"The    potent    felt    interior   command"    of    the   great 
poem  has  become  'the  inscrutable  command'  of  the  last 
page  of  his  prose;  his  mission  is  from  the  Highest  and 
he  follows  it  implicitly. 


232  CONTEMPORARY  PORTRAITS 

It  is  curious  that  the  metaphor  he  uses  in  the  very 
last  sentence  has  already   been  used   magnificently  by 
Goethe  in  his  "Egmont."     Whitman  often  reminds  me 
of  the  great  German.     I  ought  to  say  that  coming  after 
Goethe  he  has  borrowed  from  <him,  as  I  think  he  has 
in  this  instance.    My  readers  shall  judge.    Goethe  wrote : 
"As  if  whipped  by  invisible  Spirits  the  Sunhorses 
of  Time  have  run  away  with  the  light  car  of  our  Des- 
tiny and  nothing   remains    for  us  but   with  resolute 
hearts    to    hold    fast    the    reins    avoiding    now    the 
rock  on  the  right,  now  the  abyss  on  flhe  left;  whither 
we  are  speeding  who  can  tell ;  hardly  can  we  even  re- 
member whence  we  came!" 

One  more  question  remains  to  be  answered:  What 
is  Whitman's  position  in  the  world  of  letters?  Is  he 
one  of  those  w<ho  steer  humanity  and  reveal  unsuspected 
powers  in  human  nature? 

It  seems  to  me  that  he  is  nearer  akin  to  Browning 
than  to  any  other  English  singer;  but  as  soon  as  we 
think  of  tJhem  together  Whitman's  shortcomings  and 
Whitman's  noble  attempt  to  reconcile  Christianity  and 
paganism  declare  themselves.  Browning's  "Rabbi  ben 
Ezra"  is  as  fine,  I  think,  as  Whitman's  "Prayer  to 
Columbus,"  and  Browning  has  done  several  other  things 
as  good  as  the  Rabbi.  There  are  'besides  love-lyrics  of 
the  best  in  Browning  and  a  hundred  pictures  of  men  and 
women  from  Andrea  del  Sarto  to  Bishop  Blougram 
painted  with  intense  vividness  and  reahty.  Browning 
has  played  critic  very  rarely,  but  whenever  he  does  he 
use  original  insight  and  is  most  excellently  educated  to 


WALT  WHITMAN  233 

•boot.  His  skill  in  words  is  not  of  the  first  order;  b'ut 
he  is  far  above  Whitman's  crude  provincialisms  and  ill- 
advised  borrowings  from  imperfectly  understood  for- 
eign tongues.  Where  it  not  for  "The  Prayer  of  Colum- 
bus," I  should  rate  Poe  almost  as  highly  as  the  author 
of  the  "Leaves  of  Grass." 

Yet  I  cannot  leave  Whitman  on  this  note:  he  is 
boWly  a  pagan,  and  stands  for  the  nobility  of  tiie  flesh ; 
yet  the  very  spirit  of  Jesus  is  in  him ;  somewhere  in  his 
prose  he  asks  about  a  book :  "Does  it  hel<p  the  Soul  ?" 
and  he  recognizes,  as  Browning  recognizes,  that  this  is 
the  all  important  question.  Again  and  again  Whitman 
speaks  to  the  soul  in  its  own  language  most  nobly — en- 
couraging it  and  is  thereby  fully  and  forever  justified. 

Even  when  singing  of  the  body  and  its  parts  as  sacred 
he  says : 
"O  I  say  these  are  not  the  parts  and  poems  of  the  body 

only,  but  of  the  soul, 
O  I  say  now  these  are  the  soul!" 


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